The European Patent Office received 201,974 patent applications in 2025 — the first time the figure has exceeded 200,000. That is a remarkable milestone. But buried within the headline is a statistic that deserves closer attention.
One in four patent applications from European innovators came from SMEs or individual inventors. Smaller businesses are engaging with the European patent system in a way they never have before, helped by fee reductions and the simplified route offered by the Unitary Patent.
That is genuinely encouraging. But it raises a more important question.
The risk profile has changed
Innovation is no longer concentrated in large corporates. It is increasingly being driven by smaller, more IP-dependent businesses — technology companies, life sciences startups, engineering firms, consumer brands built around a single proprietary product or process.
For large corporates, IP disputes are a cost of doing business. Legal departments exist. War chests are maintained. Infringement is an occupational hazard that gets managed.
For SMEs, the same dispute can be existential.
The patent that represents a small company’s core competitive advantage is simultaneously its greatest vulnerability. If a larger competitor copies the technology — or alleges that the SME is infringing theirs — the financial exposure can dwarf anything else on the balance sheet.
The crowding problem
More patent filings also means more overlap. More overlap means more conflict. As the number of registered patents grows year on year, the probability of any given business encountering a dispute — whether as claimant or defendant — increases with it.
The businesses least able to absorb the cost of that dispute are often the ones most dependent on their IP to survive.
A contested patent case in the UK High Court can cost over £500,000 per side before judgment. Even a relatively contained dispute — letters before action, an opinion from counsel, early-stage proceedings — can run to tens of thousands of pounds. For a business of ten or twenty people, that money does not exist as a contingency.
Filing a patent is one thing
Being able to enforce it is something else entirely.
This is where IP insurance plays an increasingly important role — not as a substitute for strong IP strategy or good legal advice, but as a means of ensuring that a business can actually defend the asset it has spent years and significant money building.
Patent insurance covers the legal costs of enforcing your rights against infringers and defending allegations that you have infringed a third party’s rights. For an SME whose patent is its most valuable commercial asset, it is the logical counterpart to the registration costs already being incurred.
The European patent system has never been more accessible to smaller businesses. The question is whether those businesses are doing enough to protect the value of what they have filed.
Find out more about patent insurance → IP insurance for SMEs → Get a free indicative quote
This article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should seek independent legal advice on their specific circumstances before taking any action.
