Is it bigger or is it smaller?

The EPO have announced that they have had a bumper year indicating an "All-time high for activities of the European Patent Office in 2012" and stating that "In 2012, the European Patent Office (EPO) received 258 000 patent applications. This represents a 5.7% increase over 2011 (244 000) and sets a new record."

Leaving aside the point that nearly every year is a new record, these figures demand close attention. However detailed numbers will not be available until mid-March and so I look to 2011 instead.

The EPO also claimed a bumper year in 2011 [see here] so what does a bumper year look like?

The number claimed by the EPO as the number of applications received by them appears to be the sum of Euro-direct and PCT filings, regardless of where filed. A PCT application filed in China or the USA does not appear, to my mind, to represent "activity" by the EPO.

The EPO's activity instead could be considered to comprise the number of Euro-direct applications, plus the number of PCT applications for which the EPO acts as ISA, plus the number of PCT applications reaching the regional phase. These numbers are tabulated below:-

	2011	2010	Growth  2010-2011
a) Euro-direct	62557	71398	-12.4%
b) PCT International	181964	164170	10.8%
c) Of which, the number using EP as ISA	71627	68938	3.9%
d) Euro-PCT	80286	79405	1.1%
Total "activity" by EPO [a+c+d]	214470	219741	-2.4%
Total claimed by EPO [a+b]	244521	235568	3.8%

It is hard to see how a 12.4% decline in Euro-direct filings, near stagnation in Euro-PCT filings, and a 2.4% decline in business overall could be claimed as an increase, but that is what happened in relation to the 2011 figures.

It will be interesting to see how the 2012 figures look when published.