International Patenting and the European Patent Office

Abstract

The European Patent Office (EPO) provides a simplified, and less costly, means of seeking patent protection in the majority of European countries. We discuss issues in measurement of patenting raised by the European Patent, and then survey patterns in patenting behavior in Europe over the last decade. Notable developments are that: (1) European Patent publications grew by 70 percent between 1991 and 2000; (2) this growth was not at the expense of patents sought directly through national patent offices, which were small in number relative to European Patents throughout the period; (3) the number of destinations designated for protection in a typical European Patent has grown substantially, to the point where most now designate all EPO members. A simple structural model of an inventor’s patenting decision attributes 40 percent of the growth in European Patents and all of the growth in the extent of designation to the evolution of the fee structure for European Patents over the period. JEL classification: O34