3. Date of filing or priority date as effective date 

For the purposes of Art. 54(2) and Art. 54(3), the date of priority counts as the date of filing for both the European application being examined and conflicting European applications under Art. 54(3), on condition that the respective priority is valid (Art. 89). Different claims, or alternative subject-matters claimed in one claim, may have different effective dates, i.e. the date of filing or (one of) the claimed priority date(s). The question of novelty must be considered against each claim (or part of a claim). The state of the art in relation to one claim or one part of a claim may include matter, e.g. an intermediate document (see B‑X, 9.2.4), which cannot be cited against another claim or another alternative subject-matter encompassed by the same claim because it has an earlier effective date.

The priority right of the application being examined or the patent being opposed may also be lost as a result of failure to provide a translation of the priority document when requested in accordance with Rule 53(3) (see A‑III, 6.8 and subsections).

Of course, if all the matter in the state of the art was made available to the public before the date of the earliest priority document, the examiner need not (and must not) be concerned with the allocation of effective dates.

If the applicant files missing parts of the description, or drawings (see A‑II, 5.1), late under Rule 56, the accorded date of the application is the date of filing of these missing elements under Rule 56(2) (see A‑II, 5.3) unless they are completely contained in the priority document and the requirements given in Rule 56(3) are satisfied (see A‑II, 5.4), in which case the original filing date is maintained. The date of the application as a whole is thus either the date of filing of the missing elements or the original filing date. In the case of erroneously filed documents, the same applies if the applicant files a correct description, claims or drawings, or parts thereof, under Rule 56a (see A‑II, 6).

Claims filed in response to a communication under Rule 58 do not result in a change in the filing date of the application (see A‑III, 15), as they are considered as amendments to the application as filed (see H‑IV, 2.2.4).