The European Patent Office (EPO) offers inventors a uniform application procedure which enables them to seek patent protection in up to 40 European countries. Supervised by the Administrative Council, the Office is the executive arm of the European Patent Organisation.

Coordination of ECLI in the European Patent Office is carried out by Publication Department.

Postal address

Postfach 90
1031 Vienna
Austria

Address

Rennweg 12
1030 Vienna
Austria

Country code

The country code for the European Patent Office to be used in the second element of the ECLI is: [EP]

Generation of national ECLI

Components of the ECLI to identify decisions of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office:

ECLI abbreviation
Country code: EP
Court code: BA (BA= Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office)
Year when the decision was rendered (format YYYY)
Ordinal number composed of:

Decision case number (original case number without the slash). Composed of 7 digits --> 1 digit (type of decision) + 4 digits (ordinal number of the decision) + 2 digits (last two digits of the year of filing).

Codes for the type of decisions at the EPO:
- D : Disciplinary Board of Appeal
- G : Enlarged Board of Appeal
- J : Legal Board of Appeal
- T : Technical boards of appeal
- W : decisions on protest cases
- R : decisions on petitions for review
A dot

Example:

ECLI:EP:BA:2002:D000300.20020503

EP= European Patent Office

BA= Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office

2002 - year in which the decision was rendered (example)

D000300= D0003/00 (decision case number)

20020503 = 2002.05.03 (date of the decision)

Use of the ECLI

The ECLI is used to uniquely identify decisions of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office.

Search by ECLI is enabled via the EPO Board of Appeal decisions database (see link below)

Related links

EPO Board of Appeal decisions database

Case Law of the Boards of Appeal

European Patent Register

Last update: 20/05/2019

This page is maintained by the European Commission. The information on this page does not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Commission. The Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice with regard to copyright rules for European pages.
The Commission is in the process of updating some of the content on this website in the light of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. If the site contains content that does not yet reflect the withdrawal of the United Kingdom, it is unintentional and will be addressed.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI)

Country code

Generation of national ECLI

Use of the ECLI

Related links