How can I find out if a US patent is valid in Germany/EU

Question

I have a US patent number. And I need to find out if this patent is valid in Germany and/or EU. Or if there is an equal patent.

The number in question is: 8 - 560 - 031 How can I do this?

Answer 1

Go to espacenet (that's the site of the European patent office). Enter the US patent number, go to the family tab, check if there is a German or European patent or patent application there. Follow all EP or DE patents and check if they are valid.

For EP patents you can then go to the dpma or dpma register, enter the EP number and check if it is valid in Germany.

If you edit the US number into the question I'll show you by example.

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Example with the number from the question:

espacenet search: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/searchResults?ST=singleline&locale=en_EP&submitted=true&DB=&query=US8560031

family tab: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/inpadocPatentFamily?CC=US&NR=2012329534A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20121227&DB=&locale=en_EP

We see the US patent, a canadian patent, a chinese one, an european one, a japanese one and a PCT application which are connected to this patent.

The EP version:

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?II=3&ND=4&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20140122&CC=EP&NR=2686751A1&KC=A1#

As you can see from the A behind the patent number and from the "also published as" list, there is no granted european patent (yet). Else there would be a B version of this patent application.

EP legal status:

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/inpadoc?CC=EP&NR=2686751A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=4&date=20140122&DB=&locale=en_EP#

We can see there, that this patent application has a request for examination but has not entered national phase, there is no german version of this patent until now. It says something about a deleted request for extension, I don't know what that is but suspect it's nothing important or an artefact, so let's go back to the main page (bibliographic data) of this patent and from there to the EP register https://register.epo.org/application?number=EP12716127&tab=main

The fees have been paid last year, so this is still an active application in Europe. There has been an examination report recently.

See here:

https://register.epo.org/application?number=EP12716127&lng=en&tab=doclist

I looked at it briefly, apparently claim 6 was deemed patentable, the others can be amended/changed or arguments why they are inventive can be provided. The examiner said the term "socket" was unclear.

It seems like this patent application could get granted, probably with narrower claims, in the next years.