We really are experts when it comes to opposing patents and our enviable success rate speaks for itself. Only 10.3% of all patents that we have opposed over the last 10 years have been maintained as granted. That's significantly better than the EPO’s 10-year average of 26.2%.
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following an opposition handled by us, with 42.5% of all patents that we have opposed over the last 10 years having been revoked. Again, this is significantly better than the EPO average of 33%.
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 (Medical preparations, including pharmaceutical compositions). In this class, 92.4% of all patents we’ve opposed were revoked or amended in some way - so only 7.6% survived unscathed and were maintained as granted following opposition by Mewburn Ellis. Compare this to the EPO average of 20.1% and you can really see where our expertise makes a difference. Focusing on single opponent oppositions shows that this difference is down to us alone: only 15.7% of A61K patents were maintained as granted where we represented the sole opponent, compared to the EPO average for single opponents of 24.2%.
Our figures are even more impressive when considering A61K (Medical preparations, including pharmaceutical compositions) opposition cases that included an appeal stage, where not a single patent that we have opposed in the last 15 years has been maintained as granted following completion of the appeal stage, compared to the EPO’s average of 14.9%. In 65.5% of these cases which went to appeal, the patent was revoked, compared to the EPO average of 51.5%.
We have a better-than-average success rate for single opponent defensive oppositions in A61K too. 31.3% 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 26.1%. Similarly, only 25% of patents that we have defended in this class over the last 10 years have been revoked, which is considerably better than the EPO average of 37.9%.
Opposition stats for IPC C07 (organic chemistry)
We also looked in more detail at IPC code C07. In this class, 93.9% of all patents that we opposed in the last 15 years have been revoked or amended in some way as well, so similarly to A61K, only 6.1% have been maintained as granted. This is once again much better than the EPO average, where 21.6% of all opposed patents in C07 have been maintained as granted over the last 15 years. Once more, focusing on single opponent oppositions shows that we make the difference: only 12.5% of C07 patents were maintained as granted where we represented the sole opponent, compared to the EPO average for single opponents of 26%.
As with A61K, once again not a single C07 (organic chemistry) patent that we have opposed in the last 15 years has been maintained as granted following completion of an appeal stage, compared to the EPO’s average of 17.1%. In 67.7% of these cases which went to appeal, the patent was revoked, compared to the EPO average of 47.3%.
We also have a much better-than-average success rate for single opponent defensive oppositions in C07 over the last 10 years, where 43.5% of patents we have defended were maintained as granted in comparison to the EPO average of 28.1%. Furthermore, 19.4% of patents we defended were revoked, which is much better than the average EPO revocation rate of 33% for C07.
Source: Statistics provided by IpQuants AG
