5.5 Withdrawal of late-filed missing drawings or missing parts of the description 

Where applicants file missing parts of the description or missing drawings and make no request to base these late-filed parts on a claimed priority, they are informed of the new filing date in a communication from the EPO (see A‑II, 5.3). Within one month of this communication, the applicants may withdraw the late-filed parts of the application and if they do so, the redating of the application is deemed not to have taken place and all references to the missing parts of the description or missing drawings are deemed deleted. The EPO will inform the applicants of this.

Where applicants file missing parts of the description or missing drawings and request that these late-filed parts be based on a claimed priority, but the requirements of Rule 56(3) are not met within the applicable time limit, the filing date changes to the date on which the late-filed parts of the application are received at the EPO (Rule 56(2) or Rule 56(5)). The applicants are informed of the new filing date in a communication from the EPO. Within one month of this communication, they may withdraw the late-filed parts of the application (Rule 56(6)); if they do so, the redating of the application is deemed not to have taken place, any filing of missing parts of the description or missing drawings is deemed not to have occurred and all references to the missing parts of the description or missing drawings are deemed deleted (Rule 56(4)). The EPO will inform the applicants of this.

Where a reference to a missing figure, e.g. "see Fig. 4", is deemed deleted, then reference signs cited in it are also deemed deleted, although any technical information in the reference that is still technically meaningful without the reference may be retained: e.g. "see Fig. 4, a distillation column (1), provided with a condenser (2)" becomes "a distillation column provided with a condenser". The publication of the application (see A‑VI, 1.3) in such a case will contain the application documents as originally filed, without the references deleted.

If the late-filed missing parts of the application do not satisfy the physical requirements of Rule 49(2) in conjunction with the decision of the President of the EPO dated 25 November 2022 (OJ EPO 2022, A113), the EPO will not invite the applicant to correct this deficiency according to Rule 58 until the one-month period for withdrawing them has expired without the applicant having withdrawn them (see A‑III, 3.2.2).