Top Filers At The EPO

The European Patent Office (EPO) has released the European Patent and Patent Application Statistics for 2007.

Did You Know?

• Only half of the European Patent Applications are filed by members of the contracting states to the EPC? US accounts for a quarter of those 141000 applications filed in 2007.
• The origin of the filers varies greatly depending on the technology:
• For semiconductors, Japan leads the filings, followed by the US and Germany;
• For civil engineerings and thermodynamics, Germany leads the filings. (source)

The Odds of Litigation

Today I have attended the International Forum of Intellectual Property (FORPIQ). Actually I am very proud to be on the organizing committee of this event.

I have gathered some interesting facts at some of the sessions:

• About 1.9% of all US patents will be subject to litigation. In the High-Tech field it is about 2-2.5%. (Presentation of Mr Gregory W. Schinn) (Source: J.O. Lanjouw & M.Schankerman (2003). Based on analysis of ~10,000 suits filed in US federal courts from 1978 – 1999, corrected for “truncation” effects).
• 90% of the potential litigation cases are settled before trial.
• The majority of the cases that go to trial are in favor of the plaintiff (57% success rate in the US from 1995-2007, Source: “A closer look 2008 Patent Litigation Study: Damage awards, success rates and time-to-trial” , PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, 2008) (Presentation of Mr Bill Middleton)

IP Year In Review 2008

I am very proud to post a link to the IP Year In Review 2008 published by my firm, Fasken Martineau. This collective work is a good review of what happened in IP last year in Canada. This publication is so popular in the community that it has received a monthly award as the most popular Canadian article posted on MONDAQ. Enjoy!

Did You Know? Microsoft Has Now 10000 Patents

According to Computerworld (link), Microsoft has just got its 10000th patent granted. This is the result of more than $9 billion spent annually in research and development.
It is interesting to note that Microsoft has started to develop its patent portfolio relatively lately but the result is now quite impressive! I am wondering who is managing the payment of the maintenance fees? Is it outsourced?

Updates On Patent Prosecution Highway

The USPTO has announced that:

• The USPTO and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) have now implemented the patent prosecution highway (PPH) program on a full time basis (link)
• The USPTO and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) have started a trial cooperation initiative for the patent prosecution highway (PPH) program. (link)

The purpose of the PPH program is, inter alia, to "improve quality and pendency...".

Many patent offices are now participating (either at a trial level or at a fully implemented level) to the PPH initiative such as USPTO, CIPO, KIPO, EPO, UKPTO, JPO, IPAU, DKPTO and GPTO.