EPO-PCT procedure: some basic statistics

Based on 9/2010 data of patstat, I publish some tables trying to understand at what extent EP applications published under PCT procedure return, in regional phase, to EPO for further examinations and publications.

this may be useful also to understand if the trend of growing PCT applications in EPO may partially explain the decrease in EPO grants, due to time lag PCT procedure introduces.

The count is quite easy, it take to get  from TLS201 all the EP applications by filing year with appln_kind = "W" to get all EP-PCT applications (column EP-PCT);
Next we get all EP applications having an intern_appln_id>0 in tls201 = to one of the previous list (column ep-pct-ep). Eventually we take also the rest of ep applications with an intern_appln_id>0 but with it's corresponding PCT application applied to other than EPO. ((non EP)-PCT-EP column)

The result in PATSTAT shows out that average less than 10% of PCT procedures applied to EPO return to EPO as regional phase applications.

Most of all the number of regional phase applications coming from other offices is greater than the one of regional phases originated by epo.

	EP-PCT	EP-PCT-EP	(non EP)-PCT-EP
1978	3570
1979	11717		1
1980	20260		9
1981	25936		7
1982	28793	1	11
1983	31961	1	13
1984	37361		40
1985	40081	7	114
1986	43811	10	185
1987	46493	12	467
1988	53344	43	1323
1989	59631	164	2722
1990	66699	733	5342
1991	62947	1353	8022
1992	64930	1892	10011
1993	65083	2664	14584
1994	67463	3155	17436
1995	71797	3678	20851
1996	78950	4279	25884
1997	89734	5483	29988
1998	101724	6401	35419
1999	111765	7902	40126
2000	125923	9866	44374
2001	134235	11172	48469
2002	132311	10246	51443
2003	137230	11305	55206
2004	145312	12373	55740
2005	154398	14096	59591
2006	160288	15627	62811
2007	160275	17124	62882
2008	139610	13523	43797
2009	54378	107	375
2010	1537
9999	10513

Does it mean only 10% of EP-PCT applications follow regional path via EPO?
NO,

Let's take an example:
EP application number         7800001 is the first ever EP application and is an EP-PCT application.

It gets published as WO7800003 and return in regional phase to DE patent office, being published (with a publicatio nnumber you will not find in espacenet cause publication type is D1

	GRANTED EP NUMBER IN BULLETIN)

but anyway if we look in WO7800003 patent family we find a EP (EP6849) patent sharing same title, ipcs etc and where the cover of the patent PDF tells "international application published by WIPO 78/00003"

So, it looks like we may not be really confident patstat keeps track of all the regional phase extensions: it has many cases of internat_appln_id referring to more than one application but it seems this is not exaustive.

Eventally a statistic about time lag in months among EPO-PCT filing and it's corresponding regional phase applications.

EP- PCT filing year	n applications	months lag
1982	1	0
1983	1	0
1985	7	0
1986	10	0
1987	12	0
1988	1	-7
1988	1	-4
1988	41	0
1989	1	-12
1989	4	-7
1989	159	0
1990	1	-12
1990	1	-11
1990	2	-9
1990	7	-7
1990	1	-2
1990	722	0
1991	2	-12
1991	2	-11
1991	1	-9
1991	1	-7
1991	1	-6
1991	1347	0
1991	1	1
1991	1	2
1992	1	-15
1992	3	-12
1992	1	-7
1992	1890	0
1993	2	-12
1993	1	-10
1993	1	-8
1993	1	-7
1993	1	-6
1993	1	-2
1993	2660	0
1994	5	-12
1994	1	-9
1994	1	-8
1994	1	-3
1994	1	-1
1994	3150	0
1994	1	6
1995	3	-12
1995	1	-8
1995	1	-4
1995	1	-3
1995	3674	0
1995	1	4
1996	2	-12
1996	1	-7
1996	1	-6
1996	1	-3
1996	1	-1
1996	4277	0
1997	4	-12
1997	2	-11
1997	1	-8
1997	1	-7
1997	1	-4
1997	5479	0
1997	1	1
1998	2	-12
1998	2	-6
1998	1	-1
1998	6397	0
1998	1	2
1998	1	8
1998	1	11
1998	2	12
1999	2	-12
1999	1	-9
1999	2	-6
1999	1	-3
1999	3	-2
1999	1	-1
1999	7896	0
1999	1	1
1999	1	17
2000	1	-13
2000	4	-12
2000	1	-9
2000	1	-8
2000	1	-7
2000	1	-6
2000	1	-4
2000	1	-3
2000	2	-2
2000	1	-1
2000	9859	0
2001	1	-12
2001	3	-11
2001	1	-9
2001	1	-7
2001	2	-6
2001	11166	0
2001	1	1
2001	1	6
2002	5	-12
2002	4	-11
2002	1	-10
2002	1	-9
2002	2	-6
2002	1	-5
2002	2	-3
2002	2	-1
2002	10234	0
2002	1	1
2002	1	12
2003	7	-12
2003	1	-11
2003	1	-9
2003	2	-7
2003	3	-6
2003	2	-5
2003	1	-3
2003	4	-2
2003	7	-1
2003	11287	0
2004	2	-12
2004	3	-11
2004	2	-9
2004	1	-8
2004	6	-7
2004	4	-6
2004	2	-4
2004	2	-3
2004	2	-2
2004	1	-1
2004	12359	0
2004	1	1
2005	2	-12
2005	1	-11
2005	1	-10
2005	1	-8
2005	2	-6
2005	2	-4
2005	1	-2
2005	1	-1
2005	14089	0
2005	1	2
2006	4	-12
2006	1	-9
2006	2	-6
2006	2	-4
2006	2	-3
2006	2	-1
2006	15619	0
2006	1	1
2006	1	2
2006	1	3
2006	2	12
2007	2	-7
2007	1	-5
2007	1	-3
2007	1	-2
2007	17119	0
2007	2	1
2007	1	2
2008	2	-12
2008	1	-8
2008	1	-5
2008	1	-1
2008	13519	0
2009	1	-6
2009	1	-1
2009	105	0