Filed in 1999/2019, granted in 2019

Key points

• There appear to be 12 patent applications actually filed in 1999 and published in 2019 (i.e. without divisional applications that were filed years later).
• There were 5 patent applications actually filed in 2019 and granted in the same year (and with filing date in 2019, so again without divisional applications).
• The patents granted in 2019, most were published as patent application in 2017 (20%). About 67% were published in 2018-2015. 

This year, I searched for European patents granted in 2019 with a publication date in 2000 or in 2001 and filing date in 1999 (query date 20.12).

EP99943443 filed in 1999, EP entry 2000, search report 2008, Communications in 2008, 2015, 2018, Rule 71(3) in 2019. Optics. EP1041637 

EP99922578  filed in 1999, EP entry 2000, search report 2005, Communications in 2006, 2013, 2014, 2016, Intention to grant in 2018 (twice). Optics. EP1001566

EP99970064 filed in 1999. EP entry 2000, search report 2005. Communication in 20005. Summons in 2018 (!) (same primary examiner in 2005 and in 2018 by the way). Self-driving vehicle technology. EP1038734

EP99301793  filed in 1999.  Search report 2002. Communications in 2009, 2016. Wireless communications. EP0973117 

EP99310580 filed in 1999. Search report 2001. Communications in 2002, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2016. User interface. EP1016953

EP99902775 filed in 1999. EP entry 2000. First Communication in 2014 (!). Summons 2015. Summons 2016. Oral proceedings from 09:01 to 19:55. Refusal decision in 2017. Appeal decision 2019 (T2377/17). I note that the Board mainly considered inventive step in view of D10, a document introduced by the Board. The invention concerns low-level software (parallel additions and subtractions on packed data). EP0983557

EP99810788 filed 1999. Search report 2004. communications in 2007, 2008 (twice), 2010, 2014, 2018. Semiconductor manufacturing. EP0989594 

EP1082098 EP entry 2000, Communications in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2015, 2016. Intention to grant 2018. Cosmetics.

EP1090480  EP entry 2000, search report 2005. Communications in 2007, 2012, 2015. Intention grant 2018. Cryptography

EP1104247 EP entry 2001. Communications in 2007, 2010, 2015, 2016. Intention to grant 2018. Veterinary medicines.

EP1129414 EP entry 2001. Search report 2007. Communication 2007, 2016 (!). Intention to grant 2018. Software for television.

EP1144513 filed in 1999. Supplementary ESR in 2005. Communications in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, . Intention to grant in 2018. Mixing paint.

I saw no indications of stays, suspensions or interruption of proceedings in the online files.

Additionally, 26 divisional applications were granted in 2019 with a filing date in 1999. Two divisional applications were granted with a filing date in 1998, two further divisional applications with a filing date in 1997 and one with a filing date in 1996.


The rocket docket:

Filing date in 2019, granted in 2019:

EP3521557  -  filed 29.01.2019, search report 29.05.2019, examination started 09.08.2019, intention to grant 18.09.2019.

EP3524993 -  filed 06.02, search opinion 13.06, start examination 28.08, intention to grant 24.09. NMR sample head.

EP3548792  filed 06.02 as PCT application. ISR 02.05 Early entry 03.07 (with Rule 47.4 PCT request). Examination started 02.08. Intention to grant 22.10. Safety device. 

EP3545259 - filed 08.02 as PCT, ISR 17.04 (EPO as ISA), early entry 06.06, examination start 03.09, intention to grant 24.09. Measurement device.

EP3528594 - filed 12.02, search opinion 04.07, examination started 13.09, intent to grant 08.10. Heater for fluids.


Numbers
And now by the visualized numbers:

Fig. 1 European patents granted in 2019 (B1 publication date), by year of publication of the application (A publication).

Fig. 2 European patents granted in 2019 respectively 2015, (B1 publication date), by years since publication of the patent application (A), as percentage of total grants in grant year.

Fig. 2 shows that a larger fraction of the patents is granted within 4 years from publication year, in 2019 compared to 2015. This can be caused by either (i) the EPO grant proceedings speeding up since 2019 or (ii) (less likely) the EPO choosing to work only on newer cases in 2019.

This is illustrated in Fig. 3 below. So, in 2019, a larger fraction of the granted patents was granted within 3 years from the publication date than in grant year in 2015.  On the other hand, the fraction of patents granted 4 to 10 years after publication was smaller. Relative to the 2015 percentages, the decrease was quite large.

Fig. 3 Relative change in the fraction of patents granted in the number of years since publication year between the grant year 2015 and grant year 2019; relative to the fraction in 2015 (i.e. in 2015, 1.99% of the granted patents was published 10 years earlier, in 2019 this was 1.69%).

Finally, to show it in numbers, the percentage of the granted patents, granted within   0 to 3 years since publication (basically in time under the  Paris Conference goal*), granted within 4 to 10 years and the percentage of patents granted after more than 11 years since publication (i.e. the EPO clearing out their cupboards).

Years between publication and grant	Grants 2015	Grants 2019	Delta
0 to 3	53.6%	56.2%	2.6%
4 to 10	43.7%	40.4%	-3.3%
11 to 19	2.72%	3.41%	0.7%

Methodology: EP Bulletin search, e.g. " PUB1 [2015,2015] AND PUA [2000, 2000]"

* = there is a built-in delay for Euro-PCT applications were the EPO was not the ISA until about 18 months after the PCT publication date.

Note 2021.06.02: current search query "PUB1 = 2021* AND PUA <20050101" at https://data.epo.org/expert-services/index.html