Tender portals
Procurement portal
Suppliers are assessed in terms of their technical capability and financial capacity and stability, as well as their organisational capacity and consistency.
For more information, see "Doing business with EPO" on our website.
Yes. Procurement decisions are not based on the size of the company, but on price, operating costs, technical merits, environmental aspects, delivery/completion dates, etc. SMEs are encouraged to participate in our procurement processes.
Under Article 15 of the General Conditions of Tender, the EPO’s procurement procedures are governed solely by its own procurement rules. By submitting a bid in response to an invitation to tender, bidders agree that any dispute arising out of or in connection with this invitation to tender will be exclusively and finally settled by an arbitration tribunal which is set up and conducts its proceedings in accordance with Article 15 of the General Conditions of Tender and Annex 2 to the General Conditions of Tender, "Rules on Arbitration".
You can find them on the procurement section of our website or via Tenders electronic daily (Ted) - go to Buyer, and then to "European Patent Organisation").
You can find information about upcoming EPO procurements by clicking the "Procurement plan(forecast)" tab next to the list of current tenders on our website. We recommend keeping an eye on this for future tenders.
Tender notices normally contain the following:
Go to the "General conditions" section of our website for information on:
eTendering is our online tender platform where you can find full details of all our invitations to tender. On our procurement page you will see a list of all current invitations to tender and competitive procedures, along with our forecasted and archived tenders. We suggest keeping an eye on this page.
When clicking on one of the current tenders, you can review the notice details to see if it is a tender that you wish to participate in.
If you are interested in a particular tender, click the orange button "Participate in the tender" button to enter the eTendering tool.
For more details about registering and how to get started, qualified electronic signatures etc., go to the dedicated section on our website.
The steps for registration (with and without invitation code) are explained here.
A qualified electronic signature is required for all tender procedures. Only electronic bids/offers may be submitted in all tender and competitive procurement procedures published under eTendering. More information about qualified electronic signatures can be found in the "About eTendering" section.
A competitive procedure is a procurement exercise involving more than one bidder or tenderer, as a result of either publication or advertisement (open procedure) or a direct invitation from the EPO (competitive direct placement). The EPO then evaluates the resulting offers and makes a selection based on price or a combination of price and other factors.
The preferred procedure is an open tender. Progressively restrictive procedures such as restricted tenders with or without publication, competitive direct placements and direct placements require well-founded, documented reasons and must fulfil strict conditions. The competitive procedure with negotiation allows negotiation with bidders in certain complex procedures.
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Type |
Name |
Value |
|
Open |
Open tender |
(no threshold) |
|
Restricted tender with publication |
||
|
Competitive procedure with negotiation |
||
|
Restricted |
Competitive direct placement |
EUR 15 000 - EUR 200 000 |
|
Restricted tender without publication |
(no threshold) |
Competition
Equal treatment/non-discrimination
Transparency
The EPO undertakes to:
The bidder undertakes to:
The time limits for EPO procurements vary depending on the procedure and are set out in the published notice of the tender.
Bidders are preselected based on their responses to the questionnaires provided in the tender documents. They must answer all the specified questions if they wish to be considered for further evaluation.
General information questionnaire
This questionnaire is based on Annex 1 to the General Conditions of Tender. Questions 1.1 to 1.14 must be answered by all bidders, and questions 1.15 and 1.16 must be answered by bidders submitting technical or contractual variants. Bidders' know-how, capacity and reliability to fulfil the contract will be assessed on the basis of the information and evidence submitted in reply to this questionnaire.
Selection criteria questionnaire
This questionnaire is used to establish whether individual bidders possess the reliability, financial and economic standing (suitability), and technical and professional competence (capability) to fulfil the contract. No points are given for this questionnaire.
Overall assessment
The output of the assessment of each selection criterion is a binary determination as to whether the bidder in question satisfies that criterion or not. A decision is taken with respect to each individual bidder separately.
Award
The award criteria include in particular price, operating costs, technical merits, environmental aspects, delivery/completion dates, technical and financial guarantees offered and compliance with warranty requirements. The technical evaluation (answers to award questions) is based on the bidder’s response to the questionnaires provided in the tender documents.
The following table summarises the different approaches:
|
Name |
Selection method |
|
Open tender |
Selection criteria defined in advance in published notice. May also be included in letter of invitation. |
|
Restricted tender with publication |
As for open tender. Might include EPO’s possibility of EPO to use selection criteria to restrict to a number of suppliers/bidders. |
|
Restricted tender without publication |
Used where publication of a notice calling for a request to participate would harm the interests of the EPO. Requires at least five qualified potential bidders. |
|
Competitive procedure with negotiation |
Selection criteria are fully described in the published notice ("Call for competition"). |
|
Competitive direct placement |
Where justified for reasons of efficiency/economy, competitive procedure with at least three qualified potential bidders. |
|
Direct placement (failed tender) |
As for competitive direct placements, but selection limited to those vendors fulfilling the selection criteria. Procedure not limited to bidders who participated in previous failed exercise. |
Bidders must demonstrate the necessary reliability, financial and economic standing (suitability), and technical and professional competence (capability) to fulfil the contract in terms of the selection criteria. Bidders' know-how, capacity and reliability to fulfil the contract will also be assessed on the basis of the information and evidence submitted in response to questionnaires.
Only bids from bidders who fulfil these selection criteria will be shortlisted for assessment.
The shortlisted bids are evaluated on the basis of the award criteria (bidders’ responses to the award criteria questionnaire) and the contract awarded to the most economically advantageous bid. The award criteria include in particular price, operating costs, technical merits, environmental aspects, delivery/completion dates, technical and financial guarantees offered and compliance with warranty requirements.
Article 8 of the General Conditions of Tender
8. Opening of bids - invalid bids
8.1 Bid opening procedures will not be public. Bidders may not attend. Bids will be opened only if they arrive before the final date and time for receipt of bids and in the form specified in Article 7.
8.2 Bids received late or not in the prescribed form will be opened only where the reasons for this are beyond the Bidder's control, proof of which is required in writing.
8.3 As soon as the bids have been opened, all their essential elements, including any annexes, will be recorded and either given an identifying mark or electronically stored in such a way as to ensure the integrity of the data. The record is confidential. It may not be shown either to Bidders or to the public.
Bids are evaluated by comparing them in a transparent and traceable way.
Technical assessments are executed separately from financial evaluations. The overall assessment score is calculated in the final ranking.
More details can be found in Article 11 of the General Conditions of Tender.
Article 2 of the General Conditions of Tender
2.1 Any Bidder who
(a) is undergoing insolvency, bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings, has entered into a composition agreement with creditors, has ceased trading or is in any similar situation under the laws of the country in which he is domiciled;
(b) is the subject of a petition in bankruptcy or an application for composition (or has himself filed such a petition or application) or any similar proceedings under the laws of the country in which he is domiciled;
(c) has been convicted of an offence that puts his professional reliability in question;
(d) has been found by the EPO to have been guilty of grave professional misconduct;
(e) has failed to fulfil his obligations with regard to payment of taxes and levies under the laws of the country in which he is domiciled;
(f) during the last three years has persistently failed to perform his obligations or has failed to perform one or more core obligations under one or more contracts concluded with the EPO, which led to damages or other comparable sanction or to early termination;
may be excluded from the tender procedure.
Contract award takes place at the end of the procurement exercise (assuming a capable vendor has been found who has obtained the highest score in the combined scores of the technical and financial evaluation).
Article 12 of the General Conditions of Tender
12. Award of contract
12.1 The EPO is free to choose the bid it considers the most economically advantageous having regard to the criteria laid down in the published notice or another part of the Procurement Documents. If the tender is explicitly defined in the letter of invitation to tender as one pursuant to which a contract is to be awarded on the basis of price alone, the contract will be awarded to the Bidder who has bid the lowest price, on condition that the EPO is satisfied as to the Bidder's compliance with the tender requirements (including the Technical Conditions) and that any non-compliance specified by the Bidder does not stand in the way of the award.
12.2 The contract may be divided among several Bidders, (parts of) the contract may be placed with more than one Bidder or a partial award may be made. Prices quoted in a bid may not be revised or re-submitted after the final date for receipt of bids has passed.
12.3 A contractual relationship will arise only on signature of the contract.
Where a contractor will be processing personal data on behalf of the EPO, they must sign Annex E in order to comply with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data – "General Data Protection Regulation".
The terms "personal data" and "processing" are very broad. "Personal data" means "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person", in other words any information relating to an individual (as opposed to a legal person, such as a company) that can identify such individual. It includes names, addresses and ID card numbers, as well as online identifiers such as IP and email addresses. "Processing" means doing just about anything with personal data, e.g. collecting, recording, organising, structuring, storing, adapting, altering, retrieving, consulting, using, disclosing, transmitting, erasing or destroying it or otherwise making it available to someone else.
The EPO’s procurement demand is mainly composed of indirect materials & services, including IT products & services, energy, consultancy, recruitment & training, facility management, meeting & events and building maintenance, among others.
As an intergovernmental and self-financing organisation, the European Patent Organisation is not governed by national or EU legislation on public procurement. It has its own procurement rules which are laid down in its Financial Regulations and implementing provisions.
These rules provide that goods, works and services are acquired by competition whenever possible, and that awards are made either on a discretionary basis, taking account of a variety of factors, or on the basis of price alone.
The EPO has three working languages: English, French and German. Tender documents on the EPO procurement home page may appear in any of these three languages. These official languages are also the languages used for contracts.
As the EPO is an intergovernmental organisation, it is not a taxable person, so it does not have a VAT number.
Under the EPO's purchasing procedures we can only pay supplier invoices/credit notes which contain a valid reference number issued by the EPO ordering department. The types of reference number and their format are shown below.
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Purchase order number (PO): "45xxxxxxxx" |
||
|
Purchase order (PO) number "45xxxxxxxx" |
Funds reservation (FR) number "32xxxxxxxx-xx" |
SPE number "10xxxxxxxx-xx" |
All PO numbers have 10 digits. All FR and SPE numbers have 12 digits. Please put a dash prior to the last two digits of the number, as indicated in the box above.
If you do not have a purchase order (PO), funds reservation (FR) or single point of entry (SPE) number, please contact the business unit which sent you the order for the goods/services or your finance contact person to obtain the missing number.
If you cannot send us an invoice/credit note as a pdf, please mail it to one of the following addresses:
|
Germany |
The Netherlands |
Austria |
|
European Patent Office Accounts Payable Postfach 14 06 69 80456 München Germany |
European Patent Office Accounts Payable Postbus 5818 2280 HV Rijswijk The Netherlands |
European Patent Office Accounts Payable Postfach 90 1031 Wien Austria |
Article 8 of the General Conditions of Contract
8.3 The EPO makes payments within 30 (thirty) calendar days of full delivery and performance and receipt of a duly issued invoice which is in accordance with Article 8.1 and 8.2. Payment is considered to be made on time if the EPO's payment order reaches its bank within this period.
8.4 In cases of a contract of sale or a contract for works, the EPO may, if so agreed elsewhere (e.g. in the Specific Conditions), withhold payment of up to 5% of the remuneration including turnover tax (gross remuneration) as a defects liability bond pending expiry of the limitation period for claims relating to defects (Article 16.2). The Contractor may redeem this bond by providing a defects liability guarantee in accordance with Article 11.
EPO procurement has a LinkedIn page. Click the link under "Contact" to follow us.
If you have not received an invitation email from the EPO, please email supplier@epo.org. Kindly note that the initial credentials are valid for seven days. After seven days, a new invitation is required.
The invitation email contains a link to the Ivalua platform, where existing suppliers can set a password and then log in to the portal.
If you are not sure if your company is already registered in the EPO’s supplier database, please send a query to supplier@epo.org. We highly encourage new suppliers to register on the portal. For a complete guide to registration, see section 2, “Self-Registration”, in the user guide.
Please provide:
Please also provide at least one of the following identifiers, and ideally all of them:
In a second step please provide your bank account details.
In case of doubt, the procurement portal will indicate which fields have to be filled in.
To enable us to verify the correctness of the data, please attach supporting documents for your commercial register ID (e.g. extract from the commercial register), VAT ID (e.g. document from the tax authorities) and bank account details (e.g. letter from the bank) and, if applicable, an ISO certificate.
Supporting documents can be attached on the Documents & Certs tab on the left side of the screen.
See section 3, “Changing your company information”, in the user guide.
Your company is already registered on the EPO procurement portal. Please contact supplier@epo.org for further instructions.
After registration, you will receive an email confirming that your registration on the EPO procurement portal was successful. You can then log in with your credentials and enter additional data such as your bank details and attach supporting documents.
To enable us to verify the correctness of the data, please attach supporting documents for your commercial register ID (e.g. extract from the commercial register), VAT ID (e.g. document from the tax authorities) and bank account details (e.g. letter from the bank) and, if applicable, an ISO certificate.
A procurement officer from the EPO will review your registration form. Once a business relationship exists (contract or purchase order) your company will be fully onboarded on the portal.
If possible, please attach supporting documentation about the company’s liquidation or other evidence on the Documents & Certs tab. Add a short explanation that the company no longer exists in the Reason for change request section.
At the moment it is only possible to enter and update company master data, your address and contact information. Further functionality will be rolled out in the future.
Yes. Please email supplier@epo.org and a new invitation email will be sent to the new email address.
As your company was previously an EPO supplier we have migrated your company’s master data to the procurement portal. There is no obligation to log in to the portal.
The portal is used to register new suppliers and as a self-service portal for our existing suppliers. In the portal our suppliers can currently update their master data. In future it is planned to expand this portal to the entire purchasing process, including the exchange of documents.
No, the procurement portal and eTendering are two separate platforms.
Your changes have to be verified by an EPO procurement officer. Once they have been confirmed, the feature Request information change will be available again. The Change log tab contains information about the status.
