We now thoroughly investigated whether MercExchange filed patent applications to the European patent office too.
Result: At present time, neither granted patents nor pending patent applications became published by the EPA.
However, this fact does not guarantee, that any granting would be completely impossible to a later time, because MercExchange ran a PCT-patent application under WO9634356A1 (WIPO; wordwide), that refers to European countries too.
But meanwhile more than 7 years ran down, and the EPA has still granted no patent. Usually, in the case of positive examination-results, this happens after 3 years. For simultaneously three existing patents US5845265, US6085176 and US6202051 are aim of objections (ex-parte request for re-examination), granting a patent in Europe is VERY UNLIKELY.
Enterprises often file their patent applications same time with PCT (WIPO) to USPTO, EPA, JPO etc. too, so the process of patent examination get more transparency. The fact, that MercExchange waived to do so, and only filed their WIPO-application together with USPTO ( they knew that they would quickly get patents and without extensive examination!), proves tactical skill.
