3.4 Character of the guidance provided

The present Guidelines are primarily for examiners and formalities officers of the EPO, but are also intended to serve the parties to the proceedings and patent practitioners as a basis for illustrating the law and practice in proceedings before the EPO. As a general rule, party to the proceedings denotes the applicant, the patent proprietor or the opponent and, if the party is represented, their representative (see A‑VIII, 1).

The Guidelines cannot cover all possible occurrences and exceptions in every detail but must be regarded as general instructions that may need to be adapted to the individual case.

The application of the Guidelines to individual European patent applications or patents is the responsibility of the formalities officers and examiners. As a general rule, parties may expect the EPO to act in accordance with the Guidelines until the EPO announces a change of practice or until such time as the Guidelines – or the relevant legal provisions – are amended. Notices concerning such amendments or changes of practice are published in the Official Journal of the EPO available on the EPO website (epo.org).

Furthermore, it should be noted that the Guidelines do not constitute legal provisions. For the ultimate authority on practice in the EPO, it is necessary to refer firstly to the European Patent Convention itself, including any international treaties it refers to (such as the PCT), the Implementing Regulations, the Protocol on the Interpretation of Article Art. 69 EPC, the Protocol on Centralisation, the Protocol on Recognition, the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities and the Rules relating to Fees, and secondly to the interpretation put upon the EPC by the boards of appeal and the Enlarged Board of Appeal.

Where a decision or an opinion of the Enlarged Board of Appeal is referred to, this is to inform the reader that the practice described has been adopted to take account of the decision or opinion referred to. The same applies where decisions of the Legal Board of Appeal or technical boards of appeal are explicitly referred to.

While decisions of the Legal Board of Appeal or technical boards of appeal may on occasion diverge from the common practice, EPO examiners and formalities officers will, as a rule, follow the practice described in the Guidelines, which applies until further notice. Furthermore, the Guidelines reflect only those decisions of the boards of appeal incorporated into the EPO's general practice due to their general procedural significance; they do not take into account any deviating decisions taken in an individual case, given that the binding effect referred to in Art. 111(2) applies to that specific case only.

As regards search, the EPO also carries out searches for national patent applications from certain countries. The instructions in Part B apply in the main also to such searches.