[Patents] Re: EPO patent on distributing cooking recipes in a supermarket

[John Smith notobvious@hotmail.com]

>Under
>
>       http://ep.espacenet.com/epacenet/ep/en/
>       Search in European (EP) patents
>
>you will find EP-870264.  EP = European Patent.

No. "EP" is just the code for the EPO, as "DE" is for Germany. If the number 
is "EP-A" it's an application, whereas "EP-B" is a patent.

The "WO" number is I agree confusing; what happens is that PCT cases which 
go into the European phase are allocated a dummy publication number and 
receive an EPO front sheet with an EPO application number, but no further 
publication takes place. It seems to be for internal EPO recording purposes.

In the UK Patent Office access to Esp@cenet the number concerned is noted as 
a "requested patent", i.e. an application. The pdf file shows an application 
and the hypertext link would include a "B" if there were a patent. I'm not 
sure how long it takes for grant to be reflected in the database - maybe 
Steve Probert can answer that.

Incidentally, I think - but I'm not sure - that esp@cenet was only ever set 
up as a database of applications. The UK version certainly implies this.

"notobvious"

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