We really are experts when it comes to opposing patents and our enviable success rate speaks for itself. Only 7.4% of all patents that we have opposed over the last 15 years have been maintained as granted. That's significantly better than the EPO’s 15-year average of 24.6%. Our figures are even more impressive when it comes to appeals, where on average only 2.7% of patents that we have opposed have been maintained as granted, compared to the EPO’s average of 11.9%.
Our success rate is similarly impressive when we look at the proportion of patents that are completely revoked following an opposition handled by us, with 46.1% of all patents that we have opposed over the last 15 years having been revoked. Again, this is significantly better than the EPO average of 37.3%. These figures get even better following an appeal, with 59.3% of patents we’ve opposed having been revoked completely compared to the EPO average of 46.4%.
Opposition stats for IPC A61K (Medical preparations, including pharmaceutical compositions)
We decided to take an even closer look and see how the stats changed if we focussed on IPC A61K. In this class, 96% of all patents we’ve opposed were revoked or amended in some way - so only 4% survived unscathed and were maintained as granted following opposition by Mewburn Ellis. Compare this to the EPO average of 20% and you can really see where our expertise makes a difference.
We have a better-than-average success rate for single opponent defensive oppositions in A61K too. 32% of patents we have defended in this class over the last 10 years have been maintained as granted, which is better than the EPO average of 24%. Similarly, only 21% of patents that we have defended in this class over the last 10 years have been revoked, which is considerably better than the EPO average of 40%.
Opposition stats for IPC C7 (Organic chemistry)
We also looked in more detail at IPC code C7. In this class, 96% of all patents that we opposed in the last 15 years have been revoked or amended in some way as well, so as with A61K, only 4% have been maintained as granted. This is once again much better than the EPO average, where 21% of all opposed patents in C7 have been maintained as granted over the last 15 years.
We also have a much better-than-average success rate for single opponent defensive oppositions in C7 over the last 10 years, where 40% of patents we have defended were maintained as granted in comparison to the EPO average of 26%. Furthermore, 19% of patents we defended were revoked, which is much better than the average EPO revocation rate of 34% for C7.
*Source: Statistics provided by IpQuants AG
