The Legal status view shows the most important legal statuses of patent applications during the European patent granting procedure, plus any information available to us on the status of a European patent once it becomes the responsibility of the designated states following grant. You can also find legal status information on patent applications in the Status section of the About this file view.
List of legal statuses
The following legal statuses can appear in the Status section of the About this file view:
• The patent has been limited
• Patent maintained as amended
• Patent revoked
• Opposition rejected
• Opposition procedure closed
• No opposition filed within time limit
• The patent has been granted
• The application has been withdrawn
• The application is deemed to be withdrawn
• The application has been refused
• Grant of patent is intended
• Proceedings closed following consolidation with another application
• Examination is in progress
• Request for examination was made
• The application has been published
• The international application has been made
• unknown
Sources of legal status information in the European Patent Register
• About this file, Legal status, Event history and All documents views
These views provide all publicly accessible information on European patents and published patent applications in the various stages of the European grant procedure. All bibliographic, legal and procedural information, as well as all public documents in the electronic file of the application/patent during EP proceedings, can be found here
Information on European patents that have lapsed during opposition proceedings can be found under lapsed during oppositionin the About this file view and under Designated contracting states in the Legal status view. Information on European patents that have lapsed during the post-grant phase (regardless of whether the opposition period has ended or not) can be found under INPADOC data in the Legal status view.
• INPADOC data section
The INPADOC data section of the Legal status view contains information on all legal events during the lifetime of a European patent application. This information is provided by the EPO for the European patent grant procedure and by the national patent offices of the designated member states during the post-grant phase. This section also features information on lapses in extension or validation states, where provided by the corresponding offices. Post-grant data is displayed as delivered to the EPO by the national patent offices.
• Federated register view
This view is available for granted patents only and gives an overview of post grant legal status information provided by the relevant patent offices of the designated member states, as well as by extension and validation states. The data is delivered on the fly and via web services by the contributing national offices to provide a snapshot of the current legal status of a granted European patent.
The Federated Register service offers deep links to national patent registers, enabling you to consult the legal status data of a European patent once it has entered the national phase.