I am looking to reference a patent that was issued by the European Patent Office. According to the RSC style I am going by, I require the country that issued said patent. As the EPO is not a part of the EU, how would one cite it?
For further information, the citation style required is:
Issuing country, patent number, year.
i.e. United Kingdom, 123456789, 2022
Hello Mark Andrews,
What do you mean by EPO is not a part of the EU?
The EPO is the regional office responsible for the grant of European patents. All EU member states are members of the EPO. The EPO also has the following non-EU members: Albania, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, North Macedonia, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
To cite a UK patent office granted patent or any granted patent, refer to the priority details on the bibliographic information of the patent, this will give details about the country of origin.
The EPO is not governed by the EU. It is independent of it. Yes there are EU members, but the EU has no part in the EPO
Dear Mark Andrews,
I agree with the answers provided.
To add, when applying for an EPO patent (which is a regional application), however, the applicant is required to choose the countries under EPO that he/she needs his/her patent to be enforced. You can find the countries chosen by the applicant on the bibliographic page of the patent. It'll come in the abbreviated form (country codes, ex. AF for Afghanistan) under the name of "Designated contracting states".
Use the pdf attached if you need to find out the countries represented by the codes given.
Also if you are using a software for citation, like Mendeley, it automatically gives you the citation once you give the reference style and select your document as a patent. You might need to manually add some information like countries since the software might not read the country codes.
Hope the information will be helpful for you.
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