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ARTICLE · 01 JUNE 2018

Earlier Certainty From Oppositions - Appeals Not So Much

Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP
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Earlier this year, the European Patent Office (EPO) released their annual statistics report for 2017 which made for very interesting reading in a number of areas.

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Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP
Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP
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Earlier this year, the European Patent Office (EPO) released their annual statistics report for 2017 which made for very interesting reading in a number of areas. In particular, this covers the first full year passed since the EPO initiated their Early Certainty from Opposition scheme in July 2016 aiming to bring the length of opposition proceedings down to an average of 15 months from the end of the nine month opposition window.

The quality indicators section of the report shows that that the average (median) duration of oppositions has now dipped below two years from 24.8 months in 2016 to 22.4 months in 2017, around a ten percent change. The average duration was 26.1 months in 2015, hence a five percent shift in 2016.

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