The European Patent Register, also known as the Register of European Patents, is a public register kept by the European Patent Office (EPO). It contains legal information relating to published European patent applications and European patents granted under the European Patent Convention (EPC).
The register does not contain information regarding what happens to a European patent at the national level (especially after grant, when the European patent becomes effectively a bundle of national patents in the member states of the European Patent Organisation). Since October 2011 however, its records include deep links to the corresponding records of the European patents' "national parts" in about twenty national registers (as of December 2012).
The European Patent Office is the only body that can perform legally effective publication and registration of European patent applications and patents. It regularly issues warnings about scams by firms and individuals that invite applicants to register patents in unofficial registers or publications. Such registration services are a well known scam in intellectual property.
Famous quotes containing the words european, patent and/or register:
“It has become necessary to call the attention of European governments to a fact which is apparently so insignificant that the governments seem not to notice it. The fact is this: an entire people is being annihilated. Where? In Europe. Are there witnesses? One witness, the entire world. Do the governments see it? No.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Never to walk from the station’s lamps and laurels
Carrying my father’s lean old leather case
Crumbling like the register at the hotel....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)