Patent Knowledge Snippets

We have just reached another milestone. INPADOC now contains over 400 million legal event data records from over 50 patent offices around the world. Data growth has accelerated in recent years, with the number of events doubling in the seven years since 2015. 135 out of the 400 million events are related to EP applications, including ten million status updates. You can access this legal event data using several EPO products, including Espacenet, the European Patent Register, PATSTAT, Global Patent Index and Open Patent Services.

Navigating through this sea of information can be challenging. To make it easier, the EPO has introduced a classification scheme and each legal event code is assigned a category. The INPADOC data classification process will very soon be completed. Until then, stay tuned to Patent Knowledge News for updates. 

In a news item published in the former "Updates" section of the EPO's Asian patent information pages, we reported about a planned revision to the South Korean Utility Model Act. The proposal included, amongst other things, a reduction of the term from ten to five years and relaxed requirements for inventive step. 

We have been informed by the Korean Patent Office that this draft amendment has now been withdrawn and that, subsequently, this change to the law will not be taking place for the time being.

Please note that the "Updates" section of the EPO's Asian patent information webpages is no longer active. Instead, you can find the latest on patent information in Asia and beyond in Patent Knowledge News, and in particular in the "Patent Knowledge Snippets" section.