Recherches et opinions écrites complètes

Our goal at the search stage is to deliver complete searches and comprehensive written opinions in a consistent and harmonised manner. This has been strengthened through the implementation of the active search division, which means that every search product is now routed to all three members of the search division and the manager for review before being sent to the applicant.

In 2025 our primary focus in enhancing quality at the search stage was on further embedding the best practices of the Active Search Division (ASD) within the patent granting process.

EPO searches are globally recognised as being of the highest quality. This is only possible due to the dedication and skills of our staff and the immense resources and tools at their disposal. Our search reports and written opinions remained comprehensive and thorough:

• prior art prejudicial to novelty or inventive step was cited in 83% of search reports
• over 92% of written opinions raised an objection to patentability under the EPC 
• 29.8% of our search reports contained at least one patent citation only available in an Asian language 
• 28,1% of our search reports contained at least one non-patent literature citation 
• 28% of all search reports in the technical areas of video coding and transmission, wireless communication, IT security and Internet, and the Internet of Things contained at least one standards citation

Figure: Asian prior art in EPO search reports 

An Asian-origin citation is a patent document either in Chinese, Japanese or Korean or with a priority document in one of these languages; an Asian-only citation is a Chinese-language, Japanese- language or Korean-language patent document that does not have any patent family member in an EPO language (English, French or German).
An XYE-category citation is a document which, in relation to one or more independent claims, is: novelty- or inventive step-destroying when taken alone (X category); inventive step-destroying when combined with one or more documents of the same category (Y category); a potentially conflicting patent document regarding the filing or priority date (E category).

In 2025, our strict, in-process, internal quality audits identified a better prior art document in only 2,8% of sampled search reports. Mean search timeliness for standard searches (i.e. excluding non-unity, unclear and incomplete cases) was 5.1 months in 2025. 

In the most recently published User Satisfaction Survey (2024/2025 survey cycle) 80% of respondents were either satisfied or very satisfied with the EPO’s search services. See more statistics.

For more information, please see the Quality Report 2025.