RECENT EPC AMENDMENTS

In 2005 a plurality of amendments made to the European Patent Convention (EPC) will become effective. In the following we would like to summarize those amendments:

Filing fee
From January 1, 2005 onwards, the official filing fee for a European patent application amounts to €160.00 (previously  €125.00).  The same amount also applies to European patent applications which enter the regional phase before the EPO from that date onwards based on a preceding PCT application.

Extended Search – Rule 44a
According to new Rule 44a applicable to European patent applications and international applications entering the European phase, filed on or after July 1, 2005, an opinion on whether the application and the invention to which it relates seem to meet the requirements of EPC shall be supplied together with the European search report. This "opinion" is to provide a qualified assessment for a European patent application in an early state thereof to improve the decisive basis for any applicant whether the further prosecution of the application by filing a request for examination is promising. The “opinion” shall not be published together with the search report (and, accordingly, to our opinion shall be excluded from file inspection at least as long as the examination proceedings have not been started).

Search fee
In conjunction with new Rule 44a, the official search fee will increase to €960.00 (now it is €690.00). The international search fee (for searching a PCT application) will increase to €1,550.00 (now €945.00). Those new fees will likewise be applicable to European patent applications and PCT-applications entering the regional phase before the European Patent Office with filing date July 01, 2005 and later.

Examination fee
For European patent applications filed on or after July 1, 2005 (and corresponding "regional phases" of PCT cases), the examination fee will decrease to €1,280.00 (now €1,430.00). On the other hand, the examination fee of those PCT applications which do not require a supplemental European search, the examination fee remains unchanged (€1,430).
 
Fee for further processing and fees for a re-establishment of rights
The official fees for further processing under Article 121(2) EPC will be increased to €200.00 and the official fees for a re-establishment of rights under Article 122(3) EPC shall be increased to €350.00.  These new fees (which are considerably higher than the previous ones (€75.00)) will come into effect for payments made on or after April 1, 2005.

Procedural Changes – Rule 51(4)
On April 01, 2005, an amended Rule 51(4) EPC shall enter in force applicable to all applications for which a Communication under existing Rule 5(4) EPC has not yet been dispatched by said date. According to amended Rule 51(4) EPC, the term for meeting the requirements set out in said Rule, which is set by the European Patent Office and may not be less than two and not be more than four months, is a non-extensible term.