Pages 117-119

INFORMATION FROM THE EPO

Information regarding the publication of European patent documents

New publication system for corrections to A and B documents

The European Patent Office will introduce its new publication system for corrections to patent applications (A documents) and patent specifications (B documents) in its entirety at the beginning of 2001. The system is based on WIPO Standard St.50.

Thereby all corrections to A and B documents will be made available on all the publication media of the European Patent Office and on all associated publication products. This also includes, apart from corrections to documents in paper form, the following:

• text and image data of the complete documents and abstracts distributed by the EPO on data carrier in formats WIPO Standard ST.35 (mixed mode) and ST.32 (text only).

This means that further patent information providers, who receive their data from the EPO, can also make corrections available via their databases.

• esp@cenet^®
• the CD-ROM series ESPACE EP-A and EP-B as well as ACCESS-A and ACCESS-B.

In future, corrections to A and B documents will be marked with an individual Kind-of-Document code, as follows:

• A8 for the corrected title page of an A document
• A9 for the complete reprint of an A document
• B8 for the corrected title page of a B document
• B9 for the complete reprint of a B document.

Two new items will be introduced on the title pages of A and B documents:

• "Correction information" (INID code 15)

Example:

This indicates:

• the version of the correction, i.e. whether it is the first, second (as in this example), etc. corrected version of the same original document,
• the "supplementary correction code" (here, "W2"), followed by the Kind-of-Document code of the original (erroneous) document (in this example, "A1").

The supplementary correction code conveys which publication media and/or products are affected by the respective correction and where consequently corrections are to be expected. "W" indicates corrections which affect all types of media and products. The number which follows (in this example, "2") is the version number of the correction.

Until further notice only the W codes will appear on the title pages of the corrected A and B documents. The meaning of the supplementary correction codes applies to their use in electronic systems for search and document identification. Experts in search and the further processing of document data are referred to WIPO Standard ST.50, which gives a more detailed explanation of these codes.

• further information on the corrected parts of text. In the above example, further to the page indications, it is also pointed out whether bibliographic data are affected, in this case priority details (Inid code 30).
• The date of issue of the correction (INID code 48).

Example:

The date of issue coincides with the notice of the correction in the European Patent Bulletin.

In the body of the A and B documents the corrections will continue to be marked as before.

In the European Patent Bulletin the notices of corrections to A and B documents will continue to be published in Section III.(3) "Reprints following Corrections".

With the introduction of the new system, the kind-of-document codes A8 - B9 will also be used here. In addition, details concerning the issue date of the correction (Inid code 48) and the supplementary correction code, followed by the kind-of-document code of the original (erroneous) document as well as details as to the affected part of the document will also be given.

Of particular mention is a special supplementary correction code, DL, to be used where a correction has been mistakenly announced in an earlier Bulletin and the announcement is now being withdrawn.

Example:

Die für dieses Datum gemeldete Korrektur entfällt/The correction foreseen for this date is cancelled/La correction annoncée pour cette date est annulée

The new system for the publication of corrections will be introduced in publication week 11/2001, d.h. the first corrections of A and/or B documents of this kind will be published on 14 March 2001. From this date onwards all corresponding data will be available also on data carrier and via esp@cenet^®.

The CD-ROM series will contain corrections as of mid-2001.

Moreover, it is pointed out that corrections will also be available online on the EPO's website. Here the affected pages of the respective current corrections are provided for downloading:

www.european-patent-office.org/correct/index.htm