Written by: Caleb Gilliam-Scott
The Global IP Benchmarking Survey conducted by IAM and World Trademark Review has found that the European Patent Office (EPO) is the top rated patent office for the quality of its patents and services amongst the IP5.
IP5 is the moniker given to the five largest intellectual property offices in the world, which includes the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), National Intellectual Property Administration of the People’s Republic of China (CNIPA), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), and the European Patent Office.
Areas of performance covered by the survey included: the quality of patents, changes in patent quality over the last 18 months, the service received, value for money, patent filing activity, and levels of abandonment in the jurisdiction.
The USPTO came in second place behind the EPO on patent quality and value for money. However, CNIPA and KIPO were seen to have undergone the most positive changes in patent quality over 18 months.
Participants were also asked to rate how the unitary patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC) has impacted patent strategy, with more than half of respondents reporting a slight or strong beneficial impact.
According to the EPO’s Statistics & Trends Centre, the global uptake rate for unitary patents currently stands at 20.4%, with US proprietors holding a 15% stake of all unitary patents. The unitary patent system is certainly one of the most revolutionary changes to the global patent landscape in recent years, and it will be interesting to see what effect it has on the EPO’s rankings in the future.
