For A-stage EP documents, legal status is calculated as for any other authority, with the possible values being pending, abandoned, withdrawn, or granted.
For granted EP documents, the status is calculated in one of three ways, two of which entail a single status at the EP level:
Case 1
When a patent has reached its full term, the status expired – lifetime will appear at the EP level and no designated states will be included in the ifi-patent-status-description container.
For example:
<ifi-patent-status anticipated-expiration="20150606"> <ifi-patent-status-description country="EP">Expired - Lifetime</ifi-patent-status-description> </ifi-patent-status>
Case 2
When there is a legal status event affecting the EP filing across all authorities (e.g., patent is withdrawn, revoked, or refused), there will be a single EP-level status, and no designated states will be listed in the ifi-patent-status container.
For example:
<ifi-patent-status anticipated-expiration="20300904"> <ifi-patent-status-description country="EP">Revoked</ifi-patent-status-description> </ifi-patent-status>
Case 3
During the lifetime of granted EPs, an individual status is reported for each designated state, with a default status of active when no event affecting the current status is present. Based on the individual country-by-country status, an overall status is calculated, which is present with an attribute of “EP.” The status at the EP level will be active if any of the designated states has been calculated as active.
Case 3.1
If all of the Designated States have the same status (e.g., expired - fee related, active, etc.), the status at the EP level will be that status common to all Designated States.
For example:
<ifi-patent-status anticipated-expiration="20231017"> <ifi-patent-status-description country="EP">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="DE">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="FR">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="GB">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> </ifi-patent-status>
Case 3.2
When a mix of non-active status occurs among the Designated States, we follow a hierarchy in determining the status to report at the EP level. The hierarchy is as follows:
expired-fee-related
ceased
revoked
For example:
<ifi-patent-status anticipated-expiration="20170110"> <ifi-patent-status-description country="EP">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="DE">Revoked</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="GB">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> </ifi-patent-status>
Note: If any one designated state has a status of active, the EP-level status will also be active.
Case 3.3 (Special impact of the default status being active)
The following example (EP-1777190-B1) illustrates the use of the default active status in a record whose designated states include a single country with no status reported. The EP in this example has expired in all jurisdictions, but since there is no notice from Hong Kong through the Inpadoc legal status service, we are showing the patent as active in HK, and therefore active at the EP level.
For example:
<ifi-patent-status anticipated-expiration="20261009"> <ifi-patent-status-description country="EP">Active</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="AT">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="BE">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="BG">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="CH">Ceased</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="CY">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="CZ">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="DE">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="DK">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="EE">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="ES">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="FI">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="FR">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="GB">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="GR">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="HK">Active</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="HU">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="IE">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="IS">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="IT">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="LI">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="LT">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="LU">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="LV">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="MC">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="NL">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="PL">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="PT">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="RO">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="SE">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="SI">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="SK">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-patent-status-description country="TR">Expired - Fee Related</ifi-patent-status-description> <ifi-term-extension/> </ifi-patent-status>
Note: Detailed information about coverage in Inpadoc legal status data can be found at https://www.epo.org/searching-for-patents/helpful-resources/raw-data/data/tables/weekly.html