EPO express

Which language has the priority application to be filed in?

According to Rule 6 (1) EPC when a European patent application was filed in a non-official language a translation into one of the official languages English, French or German shall be filed within two months of filing the European patent application. The EPO will check that this requirement has been complied with. If the applicant has not filed the translation, the EPO will invite him to rectify this deficiency which gives the applicant a period of two months to submit the required translation. If this timelimit has been missed, there is only the possibility to request re-establishing of the rights. However, re-establishing of rights is granted by the EPO only in exceptional circumstances and should not be relied on.

In contrast to the earlier practice of the European Patent Office Article 9 rules now that a search fee htat has been paid for a European search shall be fully refunded if the European patent application is withdrawn or refused or deemed to be withdrawn at a time when the Office has not yet begun to draw up the search report. As the EPO would not perform a search on basis of an application that is not in an official language a full refund of the search fee could be expected. Similarly, according to Article 11 also the Examination fee should be fully refunded.