European Patent Organization

Countries designated as members of the European Patent Organization (EPO), the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), or PCT may be found as designated states in the records of EP, OA, and WO documents, whether or not those countries are indexed separately in a database. 

As far as the subject allows, only the general principles will be outlined which apply to patents in the field of biomedical products, rather than dealing with specific cases (as the interpretation of their patentability changes with time). For practical reasons emphasis will be laid on the patent policies of the European Patent Organization (EPO) and of the USA, since these are most advanced in this field and strongly influence other countries policies. Patents are usually applied first in the USA in in EPO countries, as they represent major markets. Important deviations from the EPO s or USA s policies in other countries will be mentioned and summarized where necessary. Alternatives to patents will also be briefly discussed. 

INPADOC (International Patent Documentation Center) is the most comprehensive tttbliographic database of scientific and technological patent documents in the world. The stock encompasses more than 26 miUion patent documents, more than 59 miUion legal status data, and about 10 million patent famihes (January, 2003). The database contains more than 35 milhon patent citations from 71 patent-issuing organizations (European Patent Office, World Intellectual Property Organization (WlPO)) and is updated weekly with about 40 000 new citations. 

Gross, J.M. "Gelling Organic Liquids," European Patent Application 0,225,661(1986). 

These two strains, B. sphaericus strain ATCC 53969 and R. rhodochrous strain ATCC 53968 discovered by Kilbane as being capable of dibenzothiophene desulfurization were patented as two separate (European) patents [67,91], respectively. These two patents issued by 1991 also described the use of the enzymes derived from these organisms and their cell-free extracts for desulfurization applications. Both strains were reported to carry out selective cleavage of C—S bonds in organic carbonaceous materials. The organism, Bacillus sphaericus strain ATCC 53969, was, however, reported in Exxon patents, to be capable of C—C bond cleavage as well and therefore its ability to perform desulfurization without loss of fuel value is questionable. 

Abbreviations AT, Austria CA, Canada CN, China CZ, Czech Republic DE, Germany ES, Spain EP, European Patent Office FR, France GB, Great Britain HU, Hungary JP, Japan KR, South Korea MD, Moldova NL, Netherlands RO, Romania RU, Russian Federation SE, Sweden UA, Ukraine US, United States WO, World Intellectual Property Organization YU, Yugoslavia. 

PUtter, H., Weiper-Idelmann, A., Merk, C., Fryda, M., Klages, C.-P., Schafer, L. and Hampel, A. (2003) Process for the electrochemical conversion of organic compounds on diamond coated electrodes. European patent EP 1 036 861 Bl. BASF Aktiengesellschaft, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Germany. 

Similar to the European Patent Convention are two African organizations, joining English speaking countries or former French colonies by a common patent application and examination system. 

Radlein, D, Piskorz J and Majerski, P, Method of Producing Slow-Rclease Nitrogenous Organic Fertilizer from Biomass US Patent 5,676,727, 1997 and European Patent Application 0716056. 

Second to the United States Patent Office, the largest database is accessed through the European Patent Office, where one should conduct a similar classification search as suggested previously for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (2). The World Intellectual Property Organization (3) offers many useful features including complete details of the Patent Cooperative Treaty and its gazette. The Canadian Patent Office can be reached at the website mentioned in Ref. 4. 

EPO—Patent Information on the Internet. URL http //www. european-patent-office.org/onhne/index.htm. An extensive collection of links to patent offices aroimd the world, patent databases, patent information providers, patent laws and regulations, patent information organizations, and lists of lists. Information about the content of Internet databases and the commerciaUy available INPADOC database. Includes the EPO s gateway to the esp cenet database. 

AUen WD, Lingood MA, Porter P. (1996) Enterococcus organisms and their use as probiotics in alleviating irritable bowel syndrome symptoms. European Patent 0508701 (Bl)... 

The change in the perception of hiodegradahle polymers is evident hy simply considering the trends from 1989 to 2012 in the fields of hiodegradahle (+2,800% for scientific literature and +1,100% for the sum of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) patents, European patents (EP) and United States (US) patents) and biodegradable plastics (+1,400% for scientific literature and +4,200% for the sum of WO, EP and US patents). 

---