Executive summary

In March 2024, the Administrative Council (AC) of the European Patent Organisation unanimously endorsed the EPO Strategic Plan 2028 (SP2028). The SP2028 has one goal – sustainability – which is underpinned by five drivers: people; technologies; quality products and services; partnerships; and financial sustainability.

Progress on the delivery of SP2028 is constantly monitored through a series of key performance indicators (KPIs). The KPIs on quality are published on the Quality dashboard on the EPO website, which is regularly updated to provide all users and stakeholders with a transparent picture of quality at the EPO.

On Driver 1, fostering the engagement of staff remained a key priority. The 2024 Staff Engagement Survey recorded an engagement score of 73%, an 11% increase compared to 2022. It highlighted the importance of strengthening social connections for the sense of belonging: to foster this sense, the EPO organised Campus Days at all sites to promote team interaction, learning, health and wellbeing and diversity and inclusion, with over 4 400 staff participating. Further such initiatives are planned in 2025.

Meanwhile, targeted recruitment, innovative talent development and strengthened mobility and flexibility ensured that people remain at the centre of the EPO's transformation. In 2024, we recruited 146 new highly qualified professionals, including 111 examiners from 21 nationalities. In line with the objectives of SP2028, we took proactive steps to promote diversity in recruitment. Of 102 Young Professionals (YPs) who joined the EPO in 2024, 64% were women.

We supported our staff to develop and update the skills they need through continuous learning, investing in over 145 000 hours of training, including 50 000 hours on the patent granting process (PGP), and enhancing the new examiner academy. Updated regulations on the New Ways of Working (NWoW) were implemented and in 2024 98% of staff made use of flexible work arrangements.

The EPO continued to strengthen social dialogue as set out in the Social Agenda 2024, with more than 40 meetings with staff representatives contributing to progress on various topics including implementing gender-neutral guidelines in our Service Regulations, the evaluation of the NWoW pilot and the introduction of the new skills framework.

In SP2028, the EPO aims for its buildings to serve as a physical home for our people and support an engaged professional community. Thanks to efficient and responsible management, energy consumption of buildings decreased by 14% compared to 2023. Our carbon footprint was reduced to 3 032 tCO2e (‑29% compared to 2023) taking us closer to our top-level KPI to be a carbon neutral organisation by 2030. During 2024, the renovation of the EPO's Vienna building was completed, new modern office spaces for staff were rented in Berlin, and the Building Investment Programme (BIP) for 2024 to 2028 covering Munich and The Hague was endorsed by the Administrative Council.

Under Driver 2, we are committed to leveraging technology to improve efficiency, quality and sustainability – and in 2024 significant advances were made. During the year we focused on simplifying and automating processes, removing dependencies on outdated legacy systems, incorporating secure cloud technologies and ensuring high availability of IT systems.

We fully digitalised examiner actions with digital workflows, bringing us a step closer to a fully digital PGP, and launched the Legal Interactive Platform (an AI-based tool that helps users answer queries about the European patent system). The introduction of AI-supported classification improved accuracy and consistency and ANSERA was fully adopted by the examiner community, becoming the exclusive tool for searching and viewing prior art and enabling EPOQUE to be decommissioned. We advanced environmental sustainability by providing cited patent literature exclusively in electronic format, saving 6 million pages of paper annually.

Expanding the MyEPO services suite and releasing new functionalities throughout 2024 enabled us to significantly enhance the quality and transparency of online services by improving the user experience with new administrative functionalities, streamlined workflows and enhanced self-service capabilities. Growing interest was also seen in the "shared area" feature which allows for real-time collaboration between examiners and representatives, further improving efficiency and user satisfaction.

To modernise our infrastructure and improve efficiency, we decommissioned legacy classification and search tools including the legacy data analytics service, legacy Mailbox, MyFiles and Administration facilities services. The transition to two-factor authentication allowed the phasing out of smartcards, further enhancing the security of our online services.

Turning to Driver 3, high-quality patents are essential to a thriving innovation ecosystem. They are indispensable to commercialising innovation, building successful businesses and driving further innovation. Businesses large and small, innovators and their investors look to the high quality and timeliness of the EPO's products and services to provide the highest levels of legal certainty, predictability and consistency.

To deliver on the EPO's commitment to excellence, we take a holistic approach to quality, as outlined in our Patent Quality Charter, agreed with our staff, applicants and member states. In Spring 2024, for the first time, we published the Quality Action Plan 2024 – providing greater transparency on our targeted quality actions for all stakeholders. Our annual Quality Report provides a comprehensive picture of how we work to improve quality throughout the PGP.

By focusing on quality at every stage of the PGP and monitoring quality through multiple lenses – we secured a number of achievements in 2024.

We improved formalities processes, with better handling of sequence listings and requests for oral proceedings, and achieved over 90% accuracy in routing incoming applications to the correct technical areas thanks to AI-based pre-classification.

In search and written opinion, we enhanced early collaboration for 260 000 search products under Active Search Division (ASD), leading to better quality written opinions. Careful planning and management of incoming work resulted in production in 2024 which was 15 472 products above budget, an increase of 6% compared to 2023. Overall, 81.9% of search, examination and opposition standard files were produced on time in 2024. In oppositions, 2 306 oppositions were finalised while the percentage of granted patents that were opposed dropped from 2.4% in 2023 to 2.1% in 2024.

Regular and constructive dialogue with users remained at the forefront of our pursuit of excellence in 2024. As the primary forum for discussion of quality, the SACEPO WP/Q met twice in 2024. Under this framework, three SQAPs were organised in 2024 concerning refusals, searches and written opinions and grants. During 2024, the EPO also held 26 bilateral meetings with large applicants from industry, 33 meetings with user associations and organised 29 one-on-one meetings with SMEs in Germany and the UK.

The EPO recognises that quality is a shared journey and a joint responsibility with our partners. To deliver on Driver 4, therefore, in 2024 we strengthened collaboration within the European Patent Network (EPN) under the established co-operation framework: IT co-operation; co-operation projects to enhance knowledge and quality; co-operation projects aimed at work-sharing; and co-operation projects to promote the convergence of practices by patent offices.

Following the 18th Annual Meeting on Co-operation in Vilnius in May, the catalogue of co-operation projects tailored to member states' needs was revised and expanded. In October, Bosnia and Herzegovina was formally invited to accede to the EPC. With Montenegro's recent accession, the number of EPC contracting states will soon reach 41.

Work-sharing intensified, with over 27 000 national searches performed by the EPO and the network of search co-operation partners set to expand to 21 states. On convergence of practice, work was concluded two common practice documents and advanced on two more, supported by a new transparency dashboard. We also explored extending the convergence programme to administrative topics. Support for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro-entities was boosted by a revised fee policy, benefiting over 5 000 applications.

The Unitary Patent system saw remarkable growth, with over 28 000 registrations in 2024 and overall uptake exceeding 25%. Romania joined the system on 1 September. The Unitary Patent Dashboard, launched by the EPO in July 2023 and updated daily, has been widely praised by stakeholders. In March 2024, it was upgraded with additional information, including the profile and geographical distribution of proprietors as well as uptake by country. In November 2024, the EPO published an updated edition of the Unitary Patent Guide and in parallel the first set of Unitary Patent Guidelines was developed.

In December, the Office presented for the adoption of the AC a legislative proposal for gender-neutral Implementing Regulations to the EPC. The amended rules entered into force in April 2025.

The EPO continued to expand its reach internationally, signing validation agreements with Laos and Costa Rica, renewing key reinforced partnerships and launching new Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilots with Chile and New Zealand. Engagement in the IP5 and the Trilateral focused on sustainability, SME support and artificial intelligence (AI).

The European Patent Academy provided a comprehensive training and educational programme on patents and related fields, delivering 145 training activities with almost 1 500 hours of learning. This programme supports SP2028 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Live online training attracted 26 602 registrations, while the e-learning centre recorded 23 574 active users (an increase of 25.7% compared to 2023), demonstrating growing demand for flexible digital learning. Female participation reached 51.2%.

The Academy's reach extended globally through co-operation with validation states, reinforced partnerships and the Knowledge Transfer to Africa (KT2A) initiative. The Modular Intellectual Property Education Framework (MIPEF) reached some 1 300 students at 40 universities and the Academy launched a new Patenting Innovation course.

Espacenet, the world's largest public collection of patent documents, surpassed 150 million documents in early 2024 with automatic translation into over 30 languages. By the end of the year, Espacenet hosted six technology platforms on topics of societal relevance, showcasing how organised patent data can offer valuable insights to address real-world challenges.

The European Inventor Award 2024, celebrating outstanding inventors from 15 countries, took place on 9 July in Valletta, Malta. The event attracted over 1 million views and media coverage reached a record 4 612 reports. Social media engagement soared, reaching 53.8 million users and 6 million video views.

Implementing its first Biennial Work Plan, the Observatory on Patents and Technology provided insights on innovation trends, mapped critical technologies, launched new tools, connected innovation actors and opened a transparent dialogue on patents and technology beyond IP experts. In its first 15 months to December 2024, the Observatory delivered the Deep Tech Finder (DTF) tool, published six economic studies and two technology insight reports, launched three new technology platforms, organised six online events and participated in more than 60 outreach interventions.

A sustainable patent system must be efficient and accessible, so Driver 5 – financial sustainability is critical. Following the Financial Study conducted in 2023, which assessed the long-term financial outlook of the EPO and revealed a favourable trajectory based on the base-case scenario assumptions leading to an expected coverage surplus of EUR 4.2 billion, in 2024 the EPO commissioned an Asset Liability Management Study. This Study emphasised the need to make explicit the level of risk the EPO can accept in pursuit of its financial objectives and resulted in the Office taking a number of initiatives in the second half of 2024, including formalising the risk level; creating financial security buffers; and establishing a risk management and monitoring framework.

At the end of 2024, the EPO's funding level had been improved from 73% to 80.1%. Productivity steadily increased during 2024, reaching a record 111.5 products per full-time examiner in December.