Article 108

EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE

Information from the EPO

Notice from the European Patent Office dated 6 December 2023 concerning the abolition of the practice of requesting and sending paper-based acknowledgements of receipt

Within the context of its digital transformation journey, the EPO will abolish the practice of requesting and sending postal acknowledgments of receipt with effect from 1 February 2024. This will lighten the administrative burden for both the EPO and its users. For documents or submissions filed via one of the EPO's online services, users will continue to receive an immediate electronic acknowledgement.

The practice of acknowledging receipt of documents received by the EPO and requesting users to acknowledge receipt of certain documents was introduced at a time when paper-based workflows reigned. The EPO's digitalisation efforts, including the launch of MyEPO Portfolio, the ever-growing Mailbox user community and the planned discontinuation of fax services in the course of 2024 highlight the redundancy of the current paper-based approach.

As a consequence of the abolition described above, all summonses and decisions issued on or after 1 February 2024 by the Receiving Section, the examining or opposition divisions, the Legal Division or the Unitary Patent Division will no longer include acknowledgements of receipt (EPO Forms 29361and 7936). In addition, users will no longer be requested to acknowledge receipt of these documents.

Notifications by the Boards of Appeal concerning decisions, summonses, communications drawing attention to formal deficiencies or noting a loss of rights and such other documents as may be determined by a board of appeal in a particular case will follow the same practice. As a consequence, users will no longer routinely be requested to acknowledge receipt of these documents and EPO Form 3936 will be withdrawn. The same will apply to notifications by the Enlarged Board of Appeal.

The abolition of this practice will not affect the EPO's duty in cases of dispute to establish either that the notification has reached its destination or to establish the date on which it was delivered to the addressee.

Similarly, the practice of offering users the possibility to receive acknowledgement for documents subsequently filed on paper will be discontinued for submissions received after 1 February 2024. This does not apply to the registration of new European patent applications, where receipt will still be acknowledged.

EPO Forms 1037 and 7037 will be discontinued, while EPO Forms 1038 and 7038 will be simplified. Only one paper copy of the latter form will be required and it will not be returned to the user. The EPO will indicate the date and location of receipt of submissions in Form 1038 and upload them to the electronic file. Forms 1038 and 7038 will be visible – with the associated documents – in the European Patent Register and the Register for unitary patent protection respectively.

This notice supersedes the notices from the EPO dated 16 June 2019 concerning implementation of amended Rule 126(1) EPC (OJ EPO 2019, A57) and 8 November 1990 concerning the introduction of Forms 1038 and 1037 (OJ EPO 1-2/1991, 64).