Guidelines for Examination

At present, e-mail has no legal force in proceedings under the EPC and thus cannot be used to validly perform any procedural act and, in particular, cannot be used to comply with time limits (see OJ EPO 2000, 458 and A-VIII, 2.5, in connection with Rule 2 and Rule 127).

The above OJ notice also stresses the importance of ensuring that any exchange of information is duly documented on file and that confidentiality issues should be carefully considered.