EPO Publishes Annual Review 2025
01-Jul-2026
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Source : The European Patent Office (EPO)
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Visits : 61
MUNICH - The European Patent Office (EPO) published its Annual Review 2025, accompanied by a video highlighting the Office's key achievements over the past year. The review outlines progress made under the Strategic Plan 2028 (SP2028), with sustainability as its overarching goal, according to the official website of EPO.
"Demand for European patents exceeded 200 000 applications in 2025 for the first time in the EPO's history – reflecting the trust that innovators around the world place in the European patent system,” EPO President António Campinos said. “The continuous improvement of our products and services, including through integrated AI support, next-generation tools and strengthened end-to-end digital workflows, is empowering users and enabling closer collaboration with all our stakeholders."
The Office recorded its highest-ever productivity in the patent granting process, up 3.7% on 2024, strengthening its financial sustainability. At the same time, timeliness of products and services improved, while user satisfaction and quality were maintained at high levels. Search timeliness in particular further improved, reaffirming its role as a key aspect of quality and legal certainty.
The EPO also continued its digital transformation, focusing on simpler processes and modern platforms, while safeguarding security, availability and user services. Below are some of the highlights across the five drivers of the Strategic Plan 2028: people, technologies, high-quality and timely products and services, partnerships, and financial sustainability.
Quality and user satisfaction remain high
Quality is at the heart of the EPO’s work, ensuring that growing demand for European patents goes hand in hand with high standards throughout the patent granting process. In 2025, production increased to 418 868 dossiers processed (+4.0%). Workload was concentrated in the areas driving European competitiveness such as digital technologies and health, with continued growth in the materials and production sectors driven by booming innovation in batteries. The EPO adapted to the latest developments through targeted recruitment and reskilling, maintaining quality, timeliness and efficiency across all technology fields.
Timeliness improved across the patent granting process, strengthening legal certainty for users and the market. The mean duration for standard searches was reduced to just over five months, supported by early collaboration within Active Search Divisions, and the share of standard searches sent on time increased to 86.8%. The mean duration for standard grants was also reduced, with further gains in consistency and quality. Timeliness improved in opposition proceedings too.
User satisfaction with EPO products and services remained high, as revealed by the latest user satisfaction survey, which with more than 8 000 participants was our most extensive to date. The EPO's Quality Action Plan 2025, based on extensive user feedback from across EPO channels, set out clear quality initiatives resulting in further improvements in substantive quality. These were tracked transparently using our Quality dashboard and KPIs.
Enhanced examiner tools and online user services
The EPO continued to leverage the latest technologies to simplify processes and further strengthen the end-to-end digital patent granting process. AI capabilities were expanded across examiner tools, with rigorous and extensive testing to ensure that the EPO’s AI systems perform consistently and securely, in line with its AI Policy.
PreSearch was upgraded with a large language model-based component provider trained on tens of thousands of successful examiner queries, to help uncover valuable prior art that might otherwise be missed. The upgrade is tailored to ensure that the examiner remains firmly in control at the same time as strengthening both the quality and the efficiency of search. Further areas supported by the integration of AI included digital file allocation, advanced search, document analysis and oral proceedings.
MyEPO services evolved as the central digital gateway for applicants and representatives, now serving more than 10 000 registered users. Enhanced MyEPO self-service functionalities, improved APIs and new collaborative tools made interactions across the patent lifecycle simpler, more efficient and more transparent. Other major advances in digital filing include the rollout of Online Filing 2.0 as the standard filing tool and preparing for the introduction of DOCX filing for all users.
A more accessible European patent system with global impact
As Europe’s single technology market grows, the Unitary Patent system has improved access by reducing costs and complexity for all users, with uptake exceeding expectations. SMEs, universities, and public research organizations now account for nearly half of all Unitary Patents granted to European innovators. This confirms the Unitary Patent is providing smaller players with a cost-effective route to the market of 350 million people. The newly launched Fee Assistant tool raised awareness of additional support for European small and micro entities.
Furthermore, actors from across the global innovation system, including investors and policymakers, look to the EPO for the data-driven insights they need to make informed decisions. The EPO Observatory on Patents and Technology plays a vital role in delivering patent intelligence to a global public through its studies and tools. The Deep Tech Finder, for example, now enables the general public to search more than 13 000 European startups and research institutions at the cutting edge of innovation in numerous fields, as well as more than 12 000 investors.
Two new tools were launched to deliver fresh insights into emerging technologies: the Patent Standards Explorer and the Digital Library. Finally, to enable users to explore emerging inventions in specific industry sectors in-depth, the EPO Technology Dashboard is now complemented by detailed cartographies.
Commitment to transparency
The Annual Review 2025 is accompanied by detailed annex reports on the key areas of quality, social aspects, environmental sustainability, digital transformation, data protection and partnerships. In addition to presenting operational results, these reports reflect our commitment to transparency and good governance.