European Patent Application

EPO application fees for European patents include the performance by the relevant office of an international prior art search, the results of which are published in the Official Bulletin of European Patents, and then forwarded to the applicant. On the basis of the prior art that emerges from the search, the Applicant may decide whether to request a substantive examination, and thus continue the granting procedure, or to abandon it and abandon the file. 

An examination fee and a designation fee must be paid when requesting an examination for the recognition of a patent application valid in Europe for all countries that are party to the European Patent Convention (EPC). 

The examination fee must be paid within 6 months after publication of the search report. The substantive examination consists of an evaluation of the requirements of novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability of the invention, and concludes with the issuance of an examination report. If this report is positive, the European Patent is granted and the grant is published in the Official Bulletin. 

If one of the three requirements for the grant of a European patent does not appear to be fulfilled in the light of the findings of the international search report, the Examiner shall issue one or more Official Actions, in which he shall state his reasons for the absence of the said requirements. The Applicant, through its Consultant, must respond to such Official Actions, either by contesting the Examiner's objections and documenting those objections with appropriate arguments in defence of the presence of the aforesaid requirements, or by accepting the objections in part. 

The description and/or claims of the EPO application are then amended, if necessary, and re-submitted to the Examiner. The examination procedure concludes, if successful, with the granting of a European patent application. 

The latter, in order to take effect in the individual designated states, must subsequently be regularised in those states. The regularisation procedure varies from State to State and may involve translating the entire patent or only the claims into the official language of the State.