On official communications from the European Patent Office (EPO) the application number is listed in the form: 13123456.9.
However, to search for this patent application on the European Register you need to use: EP13123456 – i.e. you need to add EP and remove the check digit.
This is often a pain. It is especially a pain if you have performed optical character recognition on a scanned-in communication. In this case you cannot copy the application number directly from the PDF into the European Register search bar.
A quick solution (until the EPO fix it): this little bit of HTML and Javascript.
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>EP Quick Search</title>
<script>
function changeNumber()
{
var n = document.getElementById("number");
var number = n.value;
var start = "EP";
var end_of_num = number.length-2;
number = start.concat(number.substring(0, end_of_num));
url = "https://register.epo.org/application?number=";
url = url.concat(number, "&tab=main");
window.open(url, '_blank')
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<input type="textbox" id="number" value=""/>
<button onclick="changeNumber()">GO!</button>
</body>
</html>
Save this as an HTML file on your computer and add it as a favourite. Now just paste the application number in the box and search!
[To do – extend to GB and WO online patent registers.]
IP Chimp 