3. Date of payment

Where an amount is paid into or transferred to a bank account held by the Office, the date on which the amount of the payment or transfer is actually entered in its account is considered to be the date on which the payment has been made to the Office (Art. 7(1) RFees). Thus, dates relating to the mistaken transfer of an appeal fee to a bank account of the German Patent Office were held not to be relevant to establishing whether a fee due to the EPO had been paid in time (see T 45/94 and T 1130/98).

Payment by credit card is deemed to have been made on the date on which the transaction is approved (see OJ 2017, A72 and OJ 2017, A73).