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European patent documents

The European publication server is the official place to obtain copies of European patent documents. Other pages listed in this section deal with some special cases of European patent publications.

European publication server

The official place for obtaining copies of European patent applications, granted European patent specifications and corrected documents. New publications are loaded every week on publication day (usually Wednesday) at 14.00 hrs CET.

European Patent Bulletin

The European Patent Bulletin contains bibliographic data as well as data concerning the legal situation of European patent applications and patents as laid down in Rule 143 EPC. 

Documents with sequence listings

Some European patent documents with large sequence listings, which are not available via the European publication server due to the download size. These can be obtained by writing to the EPO.

Euro-PCT cross-references

A large number of European patent applications are filed originally as PCT International applications and published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The EPO only re-publishes these applications if they need to be translated into one of the EPO's official languages. For all other "EuroPCT" applications, the EPO assigns an application number and provides a cross-reference to the earlier WIPO publication.

"Unpublished" EP-A documents

A small number of patent applications receive a publication number, but are ultimately not published. Possible reasons include:
- application withdrawn by applicant
- erroneous publication as the formal requirements have not yet been fulfilled (the application may be published later under a new publication number).
These "unpublished" documents are listed on a special webpage.

Publication dates

From 2007 on the publication day for European patent applications and patent specifications will always be the Wednesday, irrespective of whether this day is a public holiday or not.