5.1 General remarks 

Every application must designate the inventor, who must be a natural person (J 8/20). The designation is incorporated in EPO Online Filing and Online Filing 2.0 (see A‑II, 1.1.1). When filing on paper or using in the EPO web-form filing service or the EPO Contingency Upload Service, the designation is filed on a separate document where the applicant is not the inventor or the sole inventor. Where that is not the case, the designation must be effected on the request for grant form (EPO Form 1001) by selecting the appropriate box in section 22. Where the designation is effected on a separate document, a trilingual form – EPO Form 1002 – available on the EPO website should preferably be used.