Unitary Patent information in patent knowledge

The introduction of the Unitary Patent (UP) and the Unified Patent Court (UPC) will create new data, for example, around the legal status of European patents. The data relating to unitary effect will be curated and reported in the EPO's many patent information tools and services, providing users with an additional layer of patent information. To help users recognise UP-related information in patent knowledge products, a new marker - "C0" - will signal those patents for which unitary effect has been registered. Some products, such as the European Patent Register, Espacenet, etc., will also display a blue icon (Blue icon) to indicate that unitary effect has been requested or registered for a given patent application.

Overview of UP- and UPC-related information in patent information products

The table below provides an overview of the most prominent UP-related information in selected EPO patent information data, tools and services:

Product with information on unitary effect C0 marker displayed Search for registered UP Access
to UP Register
Access
to UP file inspection
Access to UPC Legal events and opt-out information
DOCDB in XML yes no no no no no
Espacenet yes yes yes yes [1] no yes [2]
EP bibliographic data (EBD) yes yes no no no yes
European Patent Bulletin yes yes no no no no
EP Bulletin Search no yes yes yes [1] yes yes
EP full-text data [3] no no no no no no
EP full-text search no no yes [4] yes [4] no yes [2]
European Patent Register yes yes yes yes yes yes
European Publication Server no no yes [4] yes [4] no yes [4]
Global Patent Index (GPI) yes yes yes [4] yes [4] no yes [2]
INPADOC worldwide legal event data yes no no no no yes
OPS yes yes [5] yes [6] no yes [7] yes [7]
PATSTAT yes yes no no [8] no yes
  • [1] via UP Register
  • [2] Legal events view
  • [3] for B8 and B9
  • [4] via the Register
  • [5] in Published data and Register services
  • [6] in Register service
  • [7] in OPS Legal and Family services
  • [8] in PATSTAT Global
 

Unitary Patent in the European Patent Register and EP Bulletin

Unitary Patent in the European Patent Register

Using the European Patent Register, you can search for patents for which unitary effect has been requested or registered.

The Register's navigation bar will have a new structure comprising two areas: the European procedure area with submenu items identified by the prefix EP and a new Unitary Patent area with submenu items identified by the prefix UP:

Unitary Patent in the European Patent Register

If unitary effect has been requested, the Unitary Patent part will display three submenu items: UP About this file, UP Event history and UP All documents.

You will also notice some changes on the Register's Advanced search interface. Two new search fields will be displayed: Unitary effect request date and Unitary effect registration date. To filter on the basis of granted patents for which unitary effect has or has not been requested or registered, use the operators yes or true, or no or false in the respective fields. Alternatively, you can use the date you are interested in to retrieve the relevant patents.

Unitary Patent in the European Patent Register

The same can be done using Smart search. For that, you can use two new field identifiers:

  • ufd - unitary effect request date
  • urd - unitary effect registration date

On the search results list, you will find a new Unitary Patent column. This column will display a blue icon to identify patents for which unitary effect has been requested or registered. Clicking on the blue icon will take you directly to the "UP About this file" panel view of the Unitary Patent Register.

Unitary Patent in the European Patent Register

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The C0 marker will be associated with the EP number when unitary effect is registered and visible in the various UP panel views.

Unitary Patent in the European Patent Register

A new section in the EP About this file panel view - Opt-out from the exclusive competence of the Unified Patent Court - will provide a direct link to the opt-out information held by the UPC.

A record of the information communicated to the European Patent Office concerning proceedings before the Unified Patent Court will be provided under Proceedings before the Unified Patent Court in the UP About this file panel view and will include a direct link to the UPC.

Unitary Patent in the European Patent Bulletin

Information regarding European patents with unitary effect will be published in chapter IV of the European Patent Bulletin under the title European patents with unitary effect. You will be able to find most important UP-related legal events here.

Changes, references to deleted data and rectifications relating to previous entries published under IV.1-IV.11 will appear in section IV.12 Alterations and Corrections.

A complete overview of chapter IV's contents can be found in the introduction part A of EP Bulletin (Contents). Some additional information about the sections will be provided in part D (Supplementary Details).

As the list of legal events that will be published in the EP Bulletin's UP chapter is large, amounting to 18 main events and 22 changed or deleted events (IV.12), here are just a few examples of some of them:

IV.1(1) Date of filing of request for unitary effect for the European patent

  • Date of receipt of request for unitary effect will be indicated below the European publication number, INID code (11).

IV.1(2) Date of withdrawal of request for unitary effect for the European patent

  • Date of withdrawal of request for unitary effect will be indicated below the European publication number, INID code (11).

IV.2(1) European patents for which unitary effect is registered (C0)

  • Date of registration of the unitary effect together with procedural language code will be indicated below the European publication number, INID code (11), followed by other relevant bibliographic data.
  • Only registered unitary effect entries will be published in this section.

IV.2(2) European patents for which a request for unitary effect has been rejected

  • Date on which the request for unitary effect was rejected will be indicated below the European publication number, INID code (11).
  • Only rejected unitary effect entries will be published in this section.

Changes and deletions will be published in section IV.12.

Unitary Patent in the European Patent Bulletin

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Specifics on other patent knowledge products

In this chapter you will find more details on further EPO patent information data, tools and services. 

EP Bulletin search

All UP-related information available in the EP bibliographic data (EBD) will be searchable in EP Bulletin search. Special UP-related search criteria, such as those listed below, will be available to help with query building:

EP Bulletin search

For example, the query UAC = * will retrieve all documents where an action has been filed at the UPC.

EP Bulletin search will display all EP- and UP-related information available, for example, side-by-side:

EP Bulletin search

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You can also customise the content of your result list by adding columns that include information of interest to you, e.g. UP-related information:

EP Bulletin search

All EP- and UP-related information can be added in the result list for display and download, e.g. in CSV or XML format.

EP Bulletin search also includes a link to the Register.

Espacenet

In Espacenet, you will be able to use the C0 marker to search for EP patents for which unitary effect has been registered with either of the following queries: pn=EPC0 or EPnnnnnnnC0. Use the latter if you want to search for a specific EPC0 number.

Espacenet

The C0 marker is used for registered UPs and will be visible in the result list and document-related views.

Espacenet

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You will find a new link next to the blue icon Blue icon (see Unitary Patent in the European Patent Register) in the Bibliographic data, Description, Claims and INPADOC family views providing access to the UP Register.

An EPC0 has no bibliographic data, description, claims, drawings or orginal document of its own. Therefore, the Bibliographic data view of the registered UPs (EPC0) will display the data from the EPB document and the abstract from the EPA document; the Description, Claims, Drawings and Original document views will display the data from the EPB document.

Espacenet

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Use the Legal events view for the legal events relating to the unitary patent.

Espacenet

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Global Patent Index

UP-related information will be searchable and displayed in Global Patent Index when available in DOCDB and INPADOC. This information includes registered UPs, that is, patents with EPC0 numbers, and information on participating member states. Global Patent Index will also include a link to the Register.

The EPO's bulk data sets

UP-related information will be available in the following bulk data sets: EBD, Register in Bulk, EP full-text, DOCDB in XML, INPADOC in XML.

EP bibliographic data (EBD)

For European patents with unitary effect the related bibliographic data will be stored in a new group tag - B7000 - and will include all the items described in Rule16 UPR and in the Regulation (EU) No 1257/2012. An XML document with kind="C0" & status="u" (for unpublished) will also be available with the same bibliographic data as the EP-B document.

European Patent Register data

All the publicly available procedural information on European patent applications as they pass through each stage of the granting process will include the UP-related events that are also reflected in the European Patent Register data.

EP full-text data

UP-related information will be made available in the XML bibliographic data of subsequent publications such as B8 and B9 publications (i.e. presence of an element B7000 plus relevant sub-elements - eventually also B920 including Unified Patent Court opt-out information).

EPO worldwide bibliographic data (DOCDB)

The C0 marker is added as a publication step in the bibliographic data and as part of the patent family. The list of member states covered by the Unitary Patent will also be reflected in C0 bibliographic data.

EPO worldwide legal event data (INPADOC)

EPO worldwide legal event data (INPADOC) will contain legal events for all stages of the UP procedure here. These events will originate from the EP bibliographic data (EBD), the European Patent Register and the Unified Patent Court.

Open Patent Services (OPS)

UP-related information will be available in OPS services. However, while the OPS Published data and Register services will support both UP search and retrieval, in the OPS Legal and Family services only retrieval will be possible.

To search for UPs in the OPS Register service, you can use the same field identifiers as in Register.

  • ufd - unitary effect request date
  • urd - unitary effect registration date

UP-related information will then be displayed using the "upp" constituent.

In the OPS Published data service, UP-related information will be displayed using the "biblio" and "equivalents" constituents.

The OPS Legal and Family services will display UP-related information.

For OPS documentation and an OPS manual, see under Further information on the OPS web pages. You can also browse the OPS forum and the OPS FAQ for further information.

 

Further information

Reading material/guides

Event recordings

Hear from experts and learn more about UP-related topics by watching the EPO's event recordings:

Patent Knowledge Nuggets

Patent Knowledge Nuggets are a series of short videos that aim to help users understand features of EPO data tools and how to use them. Some of these videos relate to the UP system:

Upcoming UP-related events and training

More about the Unified Patent Court

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