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If the applicant has chosen the EPO as receiving Office the international application should be sent directly to one of the EPO filing offices and not to a national patent office (see point 43).
The EPO has filing offices in Munich, The Hague and Berlin. Please note that the sub-office in Vienna is not a filing office. The EPO’s addresses are listed in Annex V.
OJ 2007, Spec.Ed.3, A.1, A.2
The national law of an EPC contracting state may prescribe that an international application is to be filed with the EPO as receiving Office via its national patent office. Only in that case may the application be filed with the EPO as receiving Office via the national patent office of the EPC contracting state concerned.
If, pursuant to national law, the international application must be filed with the EPO as receiving Office via the competent national patent office, this office will only be acting as a "filing office" for the EPO and not as receiving Office. The date of receipt of the application by the national patent office concerned, on behalf of the EPO as receiving Office, will be considered the international filing date, on condition that the application meets the PCT requirements for a filing date to be accorded.
The addresses of the national patent authorities of the EPC contracting states, and information on the national legislation establishing which international applications for which the applicant has chosen the EPO as receiving Office must be filed via the national patent office, are provided in the brochure "National law relating to the EPC"[ 13 ].