Many European patents are validated in United Kingdom (UK/GB), France (FR) and Germany (DE). This results in equivalent national patents in each of these countries. Obtaining status information on these individual national patents is getting easier everyday.
The European Patent Office is soon to release its “Federated Register”. This will allow you to access national patent registers via the European patent register. A new tab is provided on the left-hand side of the pre-existing European patent register to access this feature.
While we wait for the Federated Register you may find the following links useful:
- UK Patent Register – http://www.ipo.gov.uk/p-ipsum;
- FR Patent Register – http://regbrvfr.inpi.fr/register/regviewer?lng=en (English language version); and
- DE Patent Register – https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/pat/einsteiger (English language version).
Just enter the equivalent European patent publication number (e.g. EP1234567) in the “publication” field and off you go. I tend to print the displayed results to PDF to have a dated static record.
Update
A helpful colleague alerted me to an easier way to see the status of a European patent on the national registers.
On the European Patent Register click “Legal Status” – you can then click on the countries to hyperlink to the appropriate national register.
IP Chimp 