3.1 Processing ban – lifting the ban

The prohibition preventing the EPO as designated/elected Office from starting processing in the national/regional phase until the international phase has come to an end is referred to as the "processing ban". This ban, laid down in Art. 23(1) PCT and Art. 40(1) PCT, guarantees that applicants have a period of at least 30 months from the filing date or the earliest priority date to decide whether and before which offices they wish to enter the national/regional phase. The priority date is defined in Art. 2(xi) PCT.

The EPO has extended the guaranteed period for entry into the European phase from 30 to 31 months from the filing date or the earliest priority date, as is laid down in Rule 159(1) (A‑XII, 3.2). As a consequence of the processing ban, any time limit under the EPC that applies to a Euro-PCT application and that would expire before the end of the 31-month period under Rule 159(1) is deferred and will expire at the end of that period at the latest; see, for instance, Rule 159(1)(d), (f) and (g).

For the EPO as designated/elected Office, the processing ban is lifted by expiry of the 31-month period set in Rule 159(1) at the latest, i.e. by the lapse of the time (A‑XII, 3.2). It may be lifted earlier – so that the European phase processing will start before expiry of the 31-month period – if a valid request for early processing is filed, that is, an explicit request from the applicant for an early start of the European phase processing, as provided for in Art. 23(2) PCT and Art. 40(2) PCT (A‑XII, 7.1).

If the international application is deemed withdrawn or is not accorded a filing date during the international phase, the international phase processing stops on the date of legal effect of the notification informing the applicant that the application is deemed withdrawn or could not be accorded a filing date (Art. 11(1) PCT). There is thus no (pending) application to which the processing ban could apply. However, the procedures under Art. 25(2) PCT and Art. 24(2) PCT may allow applicants to "save" their application under the national/regional law of the designated/elected Office(s). For the procedure under Art. 25(2) PCT, short time limits apply. These procedures and the applicable requirements are dealt with in more detail in A‑XV, 2 and 3.

The processing ban prohibits the EPO as designated/elected Office from requiring that an applicant comply with any requirement until it has been lifted. It does not prohibit the EPO from performing purely administrative acts, such as adding documents to the file and, if applicable, recording the European representative appointed for the European phase. These acts are important to ensure fast and correct processing, and that correspondence is notified as soon as possible after the processing ban has been lifted.