MyEPO Portfolio complements Online Filing and Online Filing 2.0 by providing a new, guided approach to filing replies to EPO communications and other procedural actions. In the future, Online Filing 2.0 will also be integrated into MyEPO Portfolio, providing users with a seamless experience that covers all patent procedure interactions with the Office.
MyEPO Portfolio can be accessed on the EPO website under Applying for a patent ⟶ Online services ⟶ MyEPO Portfolio. You sign in with your EPO account, authenticated by EPO smart card or, in the future, by email address, password and two-step verification.
Professional representatives and other users with secure access to EPO online services can use MyEPO Portfolio. Some functions are only available to professional representatives or users who have been granted permissions in connection with the portfolio of a professional representative.
There’s no language picker in MyEPO Portfolio at present. To change the language, you will need the following workaround: log in to the Administration facility ("epoline portal") and change the settings. If the language set is already your preferred one but is not the one displayed in MyEPO Portfolio, change the setting to another language first, and then back to your preferred one.
Within the next half hour, the preferred language will be applied in MyEPO Portfolio.
Users with company administration rights in MyEPO Portfolio can grant rights and permissions to their colleagues.
(click to enlarge)
In the Admin area, all company members are listed under Company members.
Here, company administrators can grant the following rights:
You will see a list of all holders of a valid smart card linked to your company. If a user’s smart card has expired, they will not appear on the list, even though they will still be visible in the Administration facility ("epoline portal"). A user who is linked to a different company will not appear on the list.
Users with company administration rights can add recipients to the Mailbox or remove them.
Recipients can be individual professional representatives, associations or applicants.
As company administrator, you enter the name of the new recipient and select Send request.
(click to enlarge)
After the recipient has been validated by the EPO, go back into Admin area, Mailbox recipients and activate Electronic communications.
(click to enlarge)
If the requested recipient does not comply with the requirements, they will be rejected by the EPO. You must remove the names of those in the Recipients list whose request has been rejected or who no longer work for your company.
Yes. The legacy Mailbox works with users and associates – users being all those who have access to the Mailbox and associates being the professional representatives who receive communications via the Mailbox. And while we use the term "recipient" (and not "associate") in MyEPO Portfolio, the new Mailbox works in the same way.
Yes. Anything you do in one tool is mirrored in the other tool. This is ideal for testing purposes, making it easy to switch to MyEPO Portfolio.
We aim to provide new business-to-business interfaces (APIs) from the end of 2023.
Yes. You can set up email alerts under Preferences (see the FAQ section “Preferences / Email alerts”).
In rare cases, where document files are very large, the download can time out in MyEPO Portfolio. If this happens, log in to the legacy Mailbox, and download the document from there.
Communications are not automatically deleted from the inbox or other folders. The Deleted folder empties automatically at time intervals set in the legacy Mailbox (under Administration, Mailbox). Later you will be able to set these time intervals in the Admin area of MyEPO Portfolio.)
There’s no limit to the number of communications stored. But we still recommend that you delete communications regularly as a matter of housekeeping. All communications will, of course, always remain available in Applications and patents.
Applications and patents gives you, as a representative, access to your active portfolio of European patent applications and the content of the digital file for each application, including non-public documents. It also allows you to perform procedural actions for these applications.
Any active EP applications which are assigned to you as representative. For very new filings, only the application number will be available until the formalities check is completed. Applications will be available until all proceedings before the EPO are ended including the opposition period, and any opposition or appeal proceedings.
Representatives with a smart card can access the portfolio of European patent applications and patents for which they have been appointed. When more than one representative has been appointed for an application, only the main representative will see the application in their portfolio. Members of an association will also see the portfolio of applications for which their association is appointed as representative. As a representative, you can grant permissions to other users whose smart card is registered for the same company, for example, to paralegal staff and other representatives.
Yes. Members of an association will be able to see the documents in the files that make up the portfolio of applications for which their association is appointed as representative. So, it's crucial that the EPO records on membership of associations are up to date. You can make changes to an association of professional representatives using this form. And you will find further information on associations in the notice from the EPO dated 28 August 2013 on matters concerning representation before the EPO.
As a representative, you do this by signing in to MyEPO Portfolio > Applications and patents to view the portfolio and then selecting Manage permissions. This shows a list of people whose account credentials are registered as belonging to the same company as you. A dropdown menu allows you to grant permissions in connection with the entire portfolio to any other company member.
(click to enlarge)
At this point, permissions can only be granted in connection with a full portfolio, not individual applications, and only you, the representative, can grant permissions.
Certain procedural actions can be performed directly in MyEPO Portfolio, allowing you to reply directly to a communication from the EPO from within MyEPO Portfolio. These are visible under Procedural actions, along with the deadlines for the individual actions.
Currently you can use MyEPO Portfolio to
As time goes on, other procedural actions will be offered. These will include:
There are two folders under Procedural actions: Pending and Performed. You can download a copy of your submissions from the Performed folder.
(click to enlarge)
Currently MyEPO Portfolio only shows procedural actions and deadlines for replies to a communication about intention to grant under Rule 71(3) EPC and replies to a communication in examination under Article 94(3) EPC. As time goes on, the range of procedural actions offered will be expanded.
You can configure an email alert for any or all of the following events:
If you select one or more of these options, a single daily email will be sent to your email address at 08.00 hrs CET/CEST to alert you of new activity or of an approaching deadline for a pending procedural action.
You may also have selected the option Upcoming deadlines, in which case you will receive an email alert on each of the 14 days leading up to a deadline. If you perform a procedural action in MyEPO Portfolio, it will immediately be considered as having been performed. If you use other means, the procedural action will remain pending until your submission is processed by a formalities officer. In this case you could still potentially receive email alerts inviting you to perform a procedural action after you have already performed it. For this reason, it may be better to activate the email alerts for upcoming deadlines when you intend to use MyEPO Portfolio – and not other means – to perform procedural actions offered in MyEPO Portfolio.
