4.2.3Drafting the technical application documents 

The formal requirements for these documents and documents filed subsequently are defined in Rules 49(2) and 50 in conjunction with the EPO President's decision dated 25 November 2022 on the presentation of application and other documents.

(a) The documents making up the European patent application (description, claims, drawings and abstract) must be filed in a single copy. The same applies to documents replacing these original documents. 

(b) The documents making up the application must be of a quality so as to allow electronic and direct reproduction, in particular by scanning, photography, electrostatic processes, photo offset and microfilming, in an unlimited number of copies. 

(c) In the case of paper filings, the documents must be on strong, pliable, white A4 paper (portrait format). 

(d) Each document making up the application (request, description, claims, drawings and abstract) must begin on a new sheet. 

(e) All the sheets must be numbered in consecutive Arabic numerals, which must be positioned top centre but not in the top margin. 

(f) The following minimum margins (type area) must be left blank: 

(g) The lines of each sheet of the description and the claims should be numbered in sets of five, the numbers appearing on the left side, to the right of the margin. 

(h) The line spacing must be 1.5. 

(i) The documents must be typed or printed, with a minimum character height of 0.21 cm for capital letters (normally font size 9 or 10). 

(j) There must be no handwritten additions to the text. 

4.2.006Annex II gives three examples of how to draft a European patent application.