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EPO European Patent Office (EP) — regional
Layer regional
Jurisdiction EP (38 EPC contracting states); designations cover EU + EEA + Switzerland + UK + Turkey + Norway + Iceland + others
Issuing body European Patent Organisation / European Patent Office (Munich, The Hague, Berlin, Vienna)
Rights administered patent (granted via European Patent Convention); operates INPADOC + DOCDB aggregators
Working languages English, French, German (official EPO languages)
Connector status active (mature)
Last verified 2026-05-16

Manifest entries:

Detail surveys:

  • connectors/upc.md — UPC + EPO UP helpers (668 lines)
  • Pre-existing knowledge in COVERAGE_STRATEGY.md §2 (regional layer) — INPADOC carries biblio for ~100 offices, legal events for ~50

Sibling layers carrying overlapping data:

  • National offices for direct-filed patents in EPC states; EPO doesn't fully substitute for national prosecution.
  • WIPO PATENTSCOPE for PCT applications before national-phase entry.
  • UPC (upc.md) for litigation under the Unitary Patent system.

Rating: 🟢 Green

Free OAuth2 OPS API; INPADOC backbone for ~100 offices Jump to access details → View on the atlas →

§1 Mission

EPO is the single highest-leverage office in our registered-IP catalog. It issues European patents (granting protection across 38 EPC contracting states via national validation), administers the Unitary Patent system (currently ~17 EU states), and — most importantly for our coverage strategy — operates INPADOC + DOCDB, the worldwide patent bibliographic aggregators. Through EPO Open Patent Services (OPS), one connector gives us biblio + family data for ~100 national patent offices worldwide, substituting for many national patent register connectors at once.

For agents needing patent biblio, family, or legal events for nearly any jurisdiction outside Russia/some Asian gaps, EPO OPS is the first stop.

§2 What's unique here

  • EP-filed and EP-granted patents — applications and grants under the European Patent Convention.
  • INPADOC family data — DOCDB simple families + INPADOC extended families across ~100 contributing offices.
  • INPADOC legal events — legal-status events for ~50 contributing offices (subset of DOCDB coverage).
  • EP full-text for the ~30 collections EPO has full-text rights to.
  • EPO Boards of Appeal case law (substantive law layer).
  • EPO examination Guidelines (substantive law).
  • Unitary Patent register — UP-specific status, opt-out registry.

§3 Programmatic surfaces

EPO Open Patent Services (OPS) v3.2

Field Value
Endpoint https://ops.epo.org/3.2/rest-services/
Auth OAuth2 client credentials (consumer key + secret)
Format XML (EPO ST.36-derived schemas); JSON variant available on some endpoints
Rate limit Free tier: ~4 GB/week soft limit; commercial tier: higher
ToS posture Permissive for proxy-shaped use; the standard agreement permits programmatic access
Verdict (zero-infra proxy) 🟢 Green — already operational in our connector
Primary sources EPO OPS service · Developer registration

Same OPS endpoint, separate operation. Legal-events coverage scope: ~50 contributing offices (per Espacenet INPADOC legal-status help).

EPO Bulk Data (Open Patent Services bulk)

Separate bulk product; not what we use for the live connector. Bulk delivery via FTP.

CPC classification

Field Value
Endpoint EPO OPS classification helpers
Auth Same OPS credentials
Verdict 🟢 Green — operational via patent_client_agents.cpc

§4 Fees

EPO publishes a fee schedule covering filing, search, designation, examination, grant, opposition, appeal, and renewal (years 3–20), plus separate Unitary Patent renewal fees decided by the Select Committee. Rate adjustments are issued by Administrative Council decision (look for CA/D references) and published in the EPO Official Journal.

Discount programs:

  • Rule 7a EPC micro-entity — for individual applicants under defined size thresholds; stackable with Rule 6.
  • Rule 6 language reduction — for natural persons / SMEs / universities / non-profits filing in a non-official EPO language.

§5 Access via patent-client-agents

What we cover today

What we should improve

  • §5.9 envelope sweep on EPO tools — completed 2026-05-18 ✅. All search_epo/get_epo_*/get_epo_cql_help tools on the envelope, with list-accept on the four single-record gets (biblio/family/fulltext/legal_events) and cross-refs.
  • Per-jurisdiction recipe helpers — get_de_biblio(de_application_number), get_cn_biblio(...), get_kr_biblio(...) etc. — wraps OPS jurisdiction-specific search patterns. Documented as "Tier 1 Rank 12" in BACKLOG.

Next steps

  1. Ship per-jurisdiction recipe helpers (especially CN — see BACKLOG Tier 1 Rank 12 cn_via_epo_ops) to make INPADOC's transitive coverage discoverable for agents.
  2. Update fee-aware tooling once we expose fees via MCP — EPO 2026-04-01 schedule is now effective; old fee logic with 2024 figures will misquote.

§6 Known unknowns

  • Free-tier rate limit hard numbers — published policy mentions ~4 GB/week soft limit; needs verification for production planning.
  • UP renewal fee future trajectory — UP fees are decided by the Select Committee, not the Administrative Council; CA/D 9/25 didn't touch them. Decision rhythm differs from EPC fees.

§7 References

Primary sources only.

OPS:

Fees:

EPC text + supplementary publications:

UP / UPC linkage:

Last updated 2026-05-18.