Today, the EPO published its Quality Action Plan 2025, which reveals the targeted actions and initiatives they will implement to “continue delivering high-quality patents that provide the legal certainty our users expect”.
Over the course of 2024, the EPO conducted an analysis of Board of Appeal (BoA) outcomes. The analysis revealed “a high level of alignment between first instance decisions and BoA outcomes” – in 72.4% of cases the opposition decision was not affected by the outcome. In 16.5% of cases the patent was revoked – with the largest area of disagreement being inventive step (8.2%) “an area which is more subjective”. The outcomes for inter partes cases are shown in the below chart:
Based on the analysis of cases settled by the BoA in 2023, they have set the following new KPIs for EPO Oppositions:
The EPO announcement on the Plan can be viewed here.
The full Plan can be viewed here
