2. The competence of the EPO as designated/elected Office

The EPO can process the application with a view to granting a European patent only if it is (still) a designated/elected Office at the time the applicant takes the steps necessary to enter the European phase. This requires that the applicant "designated" the EPO at the time of filing the international application, which is regarded as implied in submitting the PCT request. It also means that the designation must not have been “lost” thereafter, as described in A‑XII, 2.1.1. That is why the PCT uses the term "designated Office" to refer to the national/regional offices in their role as granting authority. If the EPO was designated and subsequently elected by filing the demand for international preliminary examination, it will − on condition that its election was not lost − act as "elected Office" in the European phase, as set out in A‑XII, 2.2.

In addition, the EPO may start acting as a designated/elected Office only if it has become competent to start the processing. For this, the processing ban must first have been lifted, which, as a rule, takes place on expiry of the 31-month period under Rule 159(1), although there are some exceptions (A‑XII, 3.1 and 3.2).

The EPO’s competence to act as a designated/elected Office if the PCT applicant was not entitled to file an international application is dealt with in
A‑XII, 6.1.

Each international application for which the EPO is designated/elected Office is (also) given a European application number, which can be retrieved from the European Patent Register once the international application has been published.

On whether the Receiving Section or the examining division is competent on an application's entry into the European phase, see A‑XII, 2.3.