The European patent office’s operations in the Netherlands generate 5,800 jobs and its employees spend €885m a year in the Dutch economy, the organisation said in a news release on Thursday.

The figures are contained in a report on the economic benefits of the office by Bureau Louter.
The patent office, which gets no public funding, has some 2 700 employees (of whom 76% are expatriates). Headquartered in Munich, it claims to be the largest international organisation in the Netherlands.
Some 8.5% of all jobs in Rijswijk, where the agency is based, are now directly or indirectly related to the patent office, the research shows.