Official Patent Offices

As well as the various national patent offices that exist around the world there are also various different official patent offices which operate as an overall patent office for a multitude of different countries.

If a patent is filed at one of these offices, then the potential owner of the patent can choose which national patent offices that are contained within the official patent office they want their patent to be granted in. After this, the official patent office will go to each of the national patent offices selected to try to get the patent granted in these countries.

In the list below are all the different official patent offices that have patents contained within our database with their abbreviation that will be needed to search for patents granted in the official patent offices.

• World Intellectual Property Organization(WO)-this organization has 192 member states spread across the world.
• European Patent Office(EP)-this organization has 38 member states spread across Europe, 2 extension states and 4 validation states. 
• African Regional Intellectual Property Organization(AP)-this organization has 19 member states of predominately English-speaking African countries.
• Eurasian Patent Organization(EA)-this organization has 8 member states of countries that are either in Eastern Europe or Central Asia.
• Gulf Cooperation Council Patent Office(GC)-this is the patent office of the Gulf Cooperation Council which has 6 member states of countries that are Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
• Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle(OA)-this organization has 17 member states of predominately French-speaking African countries.