1. The EPO will adjust its fee schedule with effect from April 1, 2026. 2.1 Notably, the following fees increase: European Search fee (1520€ to 1595€); the Designation fee (685€ to 720€); Renewal fees; Examination fee (1915€ to 2010€); Grant fee (1080€ to 1135€); Fee for petition for review (3400€ to 3570€); Fee for further processing (300€ to 315€); Fee for re-establishment of rights (750€ to 790€); Claims fee (275€ and 685€ to 290€ and 720€ respectively). The increase of these fees is about 5%. 2.2 However, not all fees are concerned by the increase. In particular, the filing fee, the supplementary

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Programme for accelerated prosecution of European patent applications (“PACE”) no longer available for search as from February 1st, 2026.

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As it may be already known, the European Patent Office (EPO) has changed the formal rules in order to accept coloured or greyscale drawings.

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In case T 0697/22, the Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.02 has referred the following legal questions to the Enlarged Board of Appeal:

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Notice from the European Patent Office dated 2 July 2024 concerning a change of practice in access to patent literature documents cited in search and examination proceedings.

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The EPO will accelerate the processing of oppositions if it is informed of parallel infringement or revocation proceedings before the Unified Patent Court or a national court or competent authority of a contracting state.

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Patent fees will increase up to 36% in Canada as from January 1st, 2024.

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In March, the European Patent Office (EPO) has published a new version of the Guidelines for Examination.

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In November 2021, a Technical Board of Appeal referred to the Enlarged Board of Appeal regarding the notion of Plausibility and how it should be approached before the EPO.

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The fees and expenses as revised by the EPO are binding on payments made on or after 1 April 2023. This adjustment comes only one year after the last fee adjustment of 1 April 2022. In the past, the EPO used to adapt the official fees every two years.

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The European Patent Convention (EPC) was signed in Munich on October 5, 1973 and entered into force on October 7, 1977 for the following member states: Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

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1. Under the current EPC system, letters from the EPO are deemed to be delivered to the addressee on the tenth day following its handover to the postal service provider.

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The EPO will conduct additional searches to determine earlier national rights and further determine their prima facie relevance starting September 1, 2022. The EPO already carries out a search for prior European patent applications, which are filed before, and published after, the filing date of a European patent application in question. Such earlier European patent applications are relevant for novelty in the sense of Art. 54(3) EPC. As of September 1, 2022, the EPO will further conduct systematic searches to further identify prior national rights and assess their prima facie relevance free of charge. An earlier national right is

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Montenegro accomplished the final step towards acceding to the European Patent Convention on July 15, 2022, and will thus become the 39th member state of the European Patent Organisation from October 1st, 2022. 1. Until now, Montenegro had the status of Extension State and it was thus possible to extend to Montenegro the protection conferred by the European patent applications or patents by paying the corresponding extension fee within six months of the date on which the European Patent Bulletin mentions the publication of the European search report, or, where applicable, within the period for performing the acts required

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Despite the pandemic filings of European patent applications increased again. 188 600 patent applications were received by European Patent Office (EPO) in 2021, which is an increase of 4.5% in comparison to the previous year. This is the highest number of applications ever filed in one year. The EPO's Patent Index 2021 shows that patent filings rebounded significantly last year after a slight dip in 2020 (-0.6%). In general the number of patent applications is seen as an early indicator of how the budgets of research and development investments of companies worldwide evolve.  Source website of EPO For applications in 2021 the

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The Committee on WIPO Standards (CWS) adopted new WIPO Standard ST.26, which represents nucleotide and amino acid sequences listings in XML, replacing WIPO Standard ST.25. The representation of sequence listings in XML format rather than TXT format intends to improve access to international sequence databases. The new standard further harmonizes sequence listing practice among patent offices and requires mandatory annotation of additional sequence types (nucleotide analogues, D-amino acids, branched sequences), so that more sequence data will be searchable. The filing date (not the priority date) is the reference date that determines if the new ST.26 rules apply. Refiling a

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By order of June 23, 2021, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) rejected two applications for preliminary injunction against the Act of Approval that was adopted on December 18, 2020, for the purposes of ratifying the Agreement of 19 February 2013 on a Unified Patent Court (UPC Act of Approval). This decision was highly expected because the process of ratification of the UPC Act of Approval and thus, the establishment of the UPC has been delayed until the ruling of the Court. The violation of fundamental rights alleged by the plaintiffs is considered by the FFC insufficiently asserted and

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The EPO’s Rules relating to Fees have been amended by decision of the Administrative Council of 15 December 2021. The amended version of the Rules relating to Fees is applicable as from 1 April 2022. An evaluation of the fee adjustments indicates a general increase of about 2.5% for most fees. Raised fees concern in particular the fees for: - Filing fee (EP regional phase) : 130 EUR (increased by 5 EUR), - Filing fee (direct EP application) : 130 EURO (increased by 5 EUR), - Search fee : 1390 EUR (increased by 40 EUR), - Designation fee: 630 EUR (increased by 20 EUR),

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The European Patent with unitary effect (“Unified Patent”) will be introduced soon. The final stage of the preparatory work will be accomplished by the end of this summer and the final missing ratification will then be deposited by Germany. In order to give applicants the possibility to obtain Unitary patent protection for EP applications that are scheduled for grant between the deposit of the final ratification and the entering into effect of the Unified Patent, the EPO announced the following measure for deferring grant. For applications for which a notification under Rule 71(3)EPC has been issued, the applicant may

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Artificial intelligence system called DABUS cannot be named as inventor according to Decisions J 8/20 and J 9/20 of the Board of Appeal of the EPO Legal background Article 81 EPC stipulates that the European patent application shall designate the inventor. Article 60 defines that the right to a European patent shall belong to the inventor or his successor in title. Rule 19(1) EPC defines that the request for grant of a European patent shall contain the designation of the inventor. Present case An applicant has filed two patent applications in which an artificial intelligence system called DABUS was

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The Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) once again initiated a benchmarking survey and let users vote among the world's five largest patent offices for the quality of its patents and services. Again, the EPO has topped the survey this year in both categories like it has ever since this annual survey was started by IAM in 2010. The survey’s results showed that 26 % of the participants rate patents of the EPO as "excellent". This is in increase from 23% last year and places the EPO well ahead of the other IP5 offices. The respondents also agreed that the EPO

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