You may at any time request oral proceedings. As a rule, oral proceedings before examining divisions are held by videoconference.
Email is an admissible filing means only for the submission of subsequently filed documents during consultations and during oral proceedings. Other than in the aforementioned cases, email has no legal effect in proceedings under the EPC.
5.4.009 The examiner may seek the advice of other members of the examining division whenever appropriate. The application will be referred to them at the latest when a decision has to be taken.
If the examining division is of the opinion that a European patent cannot be granted, it will refuse the application. The decision is issued by the examining division as a whole, and the grounds of refusal must be stated. Refusals may be based only on grounds on which you have had an opportunity to comment.
5.4.010 If the application and the invention to which it relates meet the requirements of the Convention, the examining division will proceed to the grant stage.
5.4.011 The examining division informs you of the text in which it intends to
grant the European patent, and invites you to pay the fee for grant and publishing and any claims fees for claims in excess of 15 which have not yet been paid, as well as to file a translation of the claims into the two official languages of the EPO other than the language of the proceedings within a non-extendable period of four months. You are also invited to verify the bibliographic data at this stage.
If you pay the prescribed fees and file the necessary translations of the claims in due time, you are deemed to have approved the text intended for grant. If you do not respond to the invitation, the application is deemed to be withdrawn (but see point 5.10.007).
5.4.012 Upon reviewing the proposed text for grant, you may wish to make minor amendments, and/or you may discover mistakes. In that case you have an opportunity to file amendments or corrections within the period set under Rule 71(3) (see point 5.4.011). If the examining division consents to the amendments or corrections, it will issue a new communication under Rule 71(3). It can then proceed to grant, provided you have filed the translations of the claims and paid the fees for grant and publishing within the time limit set. If you file amendments or corrections and translations of the claims in due time, but do not pay the fees or file the
emed to be withdrawn (but see point 5.10.007).
5.4.013 If the examining division does not consent to the requested
amendments or corrections, it will resume the examination proceedings. Depending on the circumstances of the individual case, the examining division may for example issue a communication under Article 94(3) and Rule 71(1), (2), summon you to oral proceedings or refuse the application.
5.4.014 If you fail to meet the objections raised, the examining division will refuse the application under Article 97(2) because it does not meet the requirements of the Convention. If you fail to pay the fee for grant and publishing or any claims fees due, the application is deemed to be withdrawn (but see point 5.10.007). If you have paid said fees but ultimately no patent is granted, the fee for grant and publishing will be refunded.
Before a patent can be granted, you must also have paid any renewal fee and, if applicable, any additional fee due (see point 5.9.001 et seq.). If a renewal fee falls due before the expected date of publication of the mention of grant of the European patent, you will be informed accordingly. The mention of grant will not be published until you have paid the renewal fee. If you fail to pay the renewal fee and any additional fee in due time, the application is deemed to be withdrawn.
5.4.015 If you overrun the period set under Rule 71, you may request further processing under Article 121 (see point 5.10.007).
5.4.016 The grant does not take effect until the date on which it is mentioned in the European Patent Bulletin. At the same time as it publishes this mention, the EPO publishes a European patent specification containing the description, the claims and any drawings. The European patent specification and the European Patent Bulletin are published electronically on the EPO's publication server (epo.org).
If you have activated the Mailbox service, you will receive the certificate for a European patent as a digital file for download from the Mailbox. Otherwise, the certificate will be sent to you in paper form. If there is more than one proprietor, a certificate will be issued to each of them. Certified copies of the certificate with the specification annexed will be issued to the proprietor upon request and payment of an administrative fee.
5.4.017 You are not allowed to amend the description, claims or drawings before you receive the European search report. You should always indicate any amendments made and identify their basis in the application as filed.
he time limit for requesting examination or confirming that request (i.e. when replying to the invitation to comment on the objections raised in the search opinion), you may of your own volition amend the description, claims and drawings (see points 5.3.002, 5.4.005, 5.4.006 and 5.4.021).
5.4.019 No further amendments are allowed without the examining division's consent. Amended claims may not relate to unsearched subject-matter which does not combine with the originally claimed invention to form a single general inventive concept. In deleting subject-matter from an application, you should avoid any statement which could be interpreted as abandonment of that subject-matter. Otherwise the subject-matter cannot be reinstated.
5.4.020 The Guidelines for Examination provide information about the limits to the amendments that you can make to the description, claims and drawings after receiving the communication under Rule 71(3). If you file amendments or corrections in reply to the communication under Rule 71(3) concerning the claims, you should consider whether this necessitates any adaptation of the description. To avoid potential delays in cases where adaptation is necessary, you should preferably provide an adapted description when filing amended claims. If you do not file an adapted description, the examining division may carry out the adaptation itself and propose these amendments in a second communication under Rule 71(3). Alternatively, it may resume examination and issue a communication pursuant to Article 94(3) requesting you to provide the adapted description before issuing a second communication under Rule 71(3). Once you have received the text communicated to you pursuant to Rule 71(3) (including minor amendments and/or corrections of errors, see point 5.4.011), further amendments will only be allowed under the discretionary power given to the examining division by Rule 137(3).
5.4.021 The application may on no account be amended in such a way that it contains subject-matter which extends beyond the content of the application as filed (which does not include the priority document). However, subsequently filed examples or statements of advantage may be considered by the examiner as evidence in support of the invention's patentability.
This technical information is generally added to the part of the file that is open to public inspection (see point 5.3.006). From the date on which it is added, it forms part of the state of the art within the meaning of Article 54(2) (see point 3.3.001). A note is printed on the cover page of the patent specification to alert the public that information submitted after the application was filed is not included in the specification (see point 5.4.016).
5.4.022 You can make amendments to the European patent application in one of the following ways:
(a) by filing replacement pages. You should use this method only if the amendments are extensive and complicated. If it is not immediately clear how or why an amendment is to be made, you
replacement pages or on separate sheets.
