Statistics, Costs and Duration
Overall, about 6% of the European patents granted by the European Patent Office are opposed. Of those, over the course of 1980-2005, about 1/3 were revoked, 1/3 were maintained in an amended form, which generally means "reduced in scope", and 1/3 were maintained as granted, that is, the opposition was rejected. The opposition rate (i.e. the number of oppositions filed per 100 granted patents) before the EPO is consistently higher in the closest available proxy for the pharmaceutical sector than it is in organic chemistry and in all sectors (overall EPO average).
Filing an opposition before the EPO is reportedly relatively affordable, "as the cost varies between €6000 and €50,000 (including patent lawyers’ fees)" (as of 2009). In contrast, the costs for litigating a European patent can be much higher ("For example, in Germany the total litigation costs can be as high as €2 million with €10 million at stake"). An opposition case is reported to take on average three years to be handled by the EPO.
Read more about this topic: Opposition Procedure Before The European Patent Office
Famous quotes containing the words costs and/or duration:
“Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.—Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)