European Patent Office Attacks Its Examination Backlog

In 2016, the EPO granted almost 96,000 patents, an increase of about 40% over the previous year. Although they received nearly 160,000 applications in the same period, ony half of all applications filed proceed to grant, so we can expect about half (80,000) of the year's input to proceed to grant. By this measure, the EPO is granting patents faster than it is receiving allowable patent applications, thus reducing its examination backlog. Indeed, this is the first indication of a reduction in the backlog since 2008, when the office stopped reporting on the size or duration of its backlog.¹

We are told² that the proportion of European patent applications that proceed to grant has remained fairly consistent at around the 50% mark. This allows us to present the following chart, in which the blue line represents half of patent applications received in a given year and the green line represents the number of patents granted that given year. The area between the two lines