8.7.1 General principles 

The requirement of Art. 2(7) of the decision of the President of the EPO dated 25 November 2022 that the description, claims and abstract, as well as the request for grant, must be typed or printed in principle extends to documents replacing application documents and to amended patent specification documents (see also A‑III, 3.2).

Responsibility for formally correct submissions and, in particular, for compliance with these requirements lies with the applicant/proprietor.

It is to be noted that deletions, Deletions, correction of the numbering of the figures and insertion of reference numbers and associated arrows in drawings are considered as typewritten amendments.

If the oral proceedings take place by way of exception In order to assist the parties, including parties using their own laptops or other electronic devices during oral proceedings on the premises of the EPO, the parties may use the EPO provides EPO's technical facilities that allow for compliance with the formal requirements, in particular computers equipped with a word processor and a printer, network printers and copiers enabling documents to be printed from a USB stick, and internet access in public areas via a public wireless network (see OJ EPO 2013, 603).

Parties are recommended to prepare electronic copies of documents likely to be amended. Published patent applications and specifications are available via the European publication server. See D‑IV, 5.3 for the preferred way to amend the description in opposition proceedings.

For the procedures in examination and opposition oral proceedings, see E‑III, 8.7.2 and E-III, 8.7.3 respectively.