4.1.1 Amended application

If amendments are filed on entry into the European phase, the basis for calculating the additional fee depends on the language in which the international application was published, i.e. one of the EPO's official languages or another language, e.g. Chinese.

(i)International publication is in an EPO language

The additional fee is based on the application as published, except that any amended pages replace the corresponding pages of the application as published.

If the claims have been amended, the applicant must submit the entire set, even if the amendment concerns only some of them. The additional fee is then based on the entire set of claims as amended.

(ii)International publication is not in an EPO language

If no amendments are filed on entry into the European phase, the application as published in a non‑EPO language (e.g. Chinese) is taken as the basis for calculating the additional fee. However, if pages are amended, the translation of the application as required under Art. 153(4) and Rule 159(1)(a) is taken as the basis instead. This is because the replacement pages are in a different language to the published pages, which would make a proper calculation of the additional fee impossible.

Therefore, if the description or drawings are amended, the translation of the description or drawings is taken as the basis for calculating the additional fee. In this case, the amended pages replace the respective pages of the description or drawings as translated. If only the claims are amended, the additional fee is based on the description and drawings as published in Chinese plus the entire set of claims as amended in the EPO language. If the claims are not amended, the additional fee is based on the claims as published in Chinese.

If the applicant explicitly states that application documents filed on entry into the European phase have merely been reformatted (to reduce the number of pages subject to payment of an additional fee) rather than substantively amended, the EPO disregards these reformatted application documents and does not accept them as the basis for calculation of the additional fee (notice from the EPO dated 26 January 2009, OJ EPO 2009, 118, and Supplement to OJ EPO 2/2009; OJ EPO 2009, 338).

Example 1:

International application, published in English, containing 100 pages:

On entry into European phase, within the 31-month period, 10 pages of amended claims are filed to replace previous pages of claims, as indicated by the applicant in EPO Form 1200.

→ number of pages on which calculation is based: 100 - 20 (original claims) - 9 (Art. 19 PCT) + 10 (amended claims on EP entry) - 35 (fee-exempt)

→ number of pages to be paid for: 46

Example 2:

International application, published in Chinese, containing 75 pages:

On entry into the European phase, the translation into English is filed within the 31-month period. Three pages of the translated description as originally filed are replaced by three amended pages, as indicated by the applicant in EPO Form 1200.

→ number of pages on which calculation is based: 35 (abstract, claims and drawings in ZH) + 47 (EN translation of description - 3) + 3 (amended description of the translation) - 35 (fee-exempt)

→ number of pages to be paid for: 50

If in the above example only the claims are amended, the additional fee is based on the description, drawings and abstract as published in Chinese and the translation of the entire set of claims as amended.

If the additional fee is not paid on time, the application is deemed withdrawn. The EPO will notify the applicant of the loss of rights in accordance with Rule 112(1), and the applicant can request further processing in accordance with Art. 121 and Rule 135. If the basic filing fee under Art. 2(1), item 1, RFees was paid on time, it is not taken into account in calculating the amount of the further processing fee in respect of the additional fee.