The European Patent Office Patent Index 2021 was made available earlier today.
The annual report shows that patent application filings were at record levels with big increases in digital technologies, as well as notable jumps for pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.
The statistics also show that the mean duration of EPO Opposition proceedings (calculated from expiry of opposition filing period to date of opposition decision) for standard opposition cases (i.e. excluding cases with more than one opponent, participation of a legal member or re-scheduling of oral proceedings) increased from 15.4 months to 19.3 months.
The EPO announcement can be found here
The Patent index 2021 can be found here
All statistics made available can be found here
