EURASIAN PATENT EXAMINATION

Eurasian Application Statistics

Against the backdrop of a global decline in economic activity caused by the pandemic, the number of Eurasian applications in 2020 was relatively stable, with a year-end decline of only about 3 per cent.

Overall, the Eurasian Patent Office had 60,731 Eurasian application filings since the establishment of the Eurasian Patent Organization in 1996 through 2020.

See Diagram 1 for detailed progress in the Eurasian applications filed in the last five years.

Diagram 2 distributes the Eurasian applications subject to the specificities of the filing procedure.

International applications accounted for the bulk of Eurasian applications in 2020 totaling to 2,486 applications, or 73.6 per cent of all the applications filed.

The year 2020 saw 511 applications filed directly with the Eurasian Patent Office, which accounts for 15.1 per cent of overall Eurasian application filings during the year. National IP offices of the Eurasian Patent Convention (EAPC) Contracting States channeled 380 applications in 2020, or 11.3 per cent of the total amount of Eurasian applications filed.

Diagram 3 cascades the Eurasian applications by country of origin showing the largest number of Eurasian applications filed in 2020.

Similarly to the preceding years, the United States of America proved the largest geographical origin of Eurasian applications, 991 or 29.3 per cent of all the applications filed with the Eurasian Patent Office.

Applicants from the EAPC Contracting States filed 679 applications in 2020.

The largest number of Eurasian applications, which amounts to 453, came from the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus accounts for 105 applications, the Republic of Kazakhstan  – 90 applications and the Republic of Azerbaijan  – 18 applications.

Diagram 4 details the Eurasian application filing progress under the aforementioned procedures for applicants from the Contracting States to the Eurasian Patent Convention.

The distribution pattern for Eurasian applications by industry did not change significantly in 2020. Similar to the previous years, the bulk of applications were filed for inventions in the fields of organic chemistry, pharmaceuticals and medicines. Table 1 breaks down the Eurasian applications filed in 2020 by subject matter.

The year 2020 saw 2,996 applications filed electronically, which makes 89 per cent of all the Eurasian applications filed in 2020.

EURASIAN PATENT GRANTS

In the reporting year, the Eurasian Patent Register saw 2,735 new entries. The total number of EAPO grants for the period 1996 through 2020 makes 36,888 Eurasian patents.

In the year under review 2,754 Eurasian patents were granted, which exceeds the respective results of 2019 by 2.11 per cent. The grand total for 1996 through 2020 reached 36,882 Eurasian patent grants.

Applicants from the EAPC Contracting States and the Republic of Moldova were granted 531 Eurasian patents in 2020, marking 19.28 per cent of all the patent grants during the year.

Applicants from States not party to the EAPC had 2,223 Eurasian patent grants in 2020. The share of patents granted to applicants from States not party to the EAPC reached 80.72 per cent of all the grants for 2020.

See Table 2 for the Eurasian patent grants of 2020 distributed by country of patent owners’ place of residence.

Representatives of 67 countries became Eurasian patent owners in 2020, including residents of 6 EAPC Contracting States and the Republic of Moldova.

The largest number of Eurasian patent grants in 2020 went to the applicants from the United States of America, 550 Eurasian patents (19.97 per cent); Russian Federation, 334 Eurasian patents (12.13 per cent); Germany, 216 Eurasian patents (7.84 per cent); Netherlands, 164 Eurasian patents (5.95 per cent); Switzerland, 148 Eurasian patents (5.37 per cent); France, 134 Eurasian patents (4.87 per cent); United Kingdom, 101 Eurasian patents (3.67 per cent); the Republic of Belarus, 96 Eurasian patents (3.49 per cent); Italy, 90 Eurasian patents (3.27 per cent); Japan, 91 Eurasian patents (3.30 per cent); Peoples’ Republic of China, 89 Eurasian patents (3.23 per cent).

The year of 2020 saw 2,107 Eurasian patents, or 79.80 per cent of the total number of Eurasian patents granted on the basis of PCT applications that had entered the regional phase of the PCT procedure, constituting 76.51 per cent of the total number of Eurasian patent grants in the reporting period.

Table 3 distributes the Eurasian patent grants based on applications entered the regional phase in the EAPO under the PCT in 2020.

Applicants from four EAPC Contracting States and the Republic of Moldova were granted 98 Eurasian patents in 2020, or 4.65 per cent of the total Eurasian patent grants based on PCT applications. The largest amount of such patents, 88 (or 4.18 per cent), went to Russian Federation applicants.

At the same time, innovators from 59 States not party to the EAPC were granted 2,009 Eurasian patents or 95.35 per cent of all the Eurasian patent grants based on PCT applications. The largest number of patents went to the holders from the United States of America, 474 Eurasian patents (22.50 per cent); Germany, 190 Eurasian patents (9.02 per cent); Netherlands, 153 Eurasian patents (7.26 per cent); Switzerland, 134 Eurasian patents (6.36 per cent); France, 128 Eurasian patents (6.07 per cent).

As of 31 December 2020, a total of 653 Eurasian patents had been terminated on the territory of the EAPC Contracting States and the Republic of Moldova due to the expiry of twenty-year term under Article 11 of the Eurasian Patent Convention.

As of the same date, the Eurasian patents in force on the territory of the EAPC Contracting States and the Republic of Moldova reached 17,410 patents.

The first annual fees for maintaining 2,466 Eurasian patents in force were paid in 2020.

See Table 4 for details of the first annual fees paid for the Eurasian patents in 2020.

Table 4 shows 3.72 as the average number of designations of the EAPC Contracting States and the Republic of Moldova at the stage of the first payment of annual maintenance fees for maintaining the Eurasian patents in force.

The recurrence of designations of the EAPC Contracting States and the Republic of Moldova in relation to the total number of patents for which the annual maintenance fee was paid for the first time in 2020, is as follows:

Russian Federation – 96,43 per cent, Kazakhstan – 57,66 per cent, Belarus – 49,84 per cent, Azerbaijan – 38,56 per cent, Armenia – 33,62 per cent, Turkmenistan – 32,52 per cent, Kyrgyzstan – 31,39 per cent, Tajikistan – 30,54 per cent, Moldova – 1,62 per cent.

In 2020, the EAPO also received subsequent annual fees for maintaining 11,728 Eurasian patents in force.

Table 5 provides the details of Eurasian patents maintained in force via the payment of the said subsequent annual maintenance fees in 2020.