INFORMATION FROM THE EPO
Notice from the European Patent Office dated 15 December 1993 concerning the revised Request for Grant form
With reference to Rule 26(1) EPC, the revised Request for Grant form reproduced below1 is to be used as from 1 March 1994 for filing the written request for grant of a European patent. Applicants may continue to use the old form2 until 31 August 1994.
The revised form takes account in new Section 34 of the extension of European patents which enters into force for Slovenia on 1 March 19943. Old Section 34 (Precautionary designation of all Contracting States) becomes Section 33a.
The Notes on the Request for Grant form contain a new text relating to Section 34, which is reproduced below. The Notes are otherwise unchanged.
Text of Section 34 of the Notes:
Extension of the European patent
A European patent application and a European patent granted in respect of it are extended, at the applicant's request, to any State which is not a Contracting State to the EPC and with which an "extension agreement" exists on the date on which the application is filed (as at 1 March 1994: Slovenia).
The request for extension is automatically deemed to be made for any European patent application filed on or after the commencement date (entry into force of the extension agreement). It is deemed withdrawn if the extension fee is not paid to the EPO within the time limits laid down in the EPC for the payment of designation fees (Art. 79(2) in conjunction with Art. 78(2) and Rule 85a(2) EPC). No communication under Rule 85a(1) or Rule 69 EPC is issued. When extension fees are paid, the States for which they are intended must be specified.
The relevant amount of the extension fee and of its equivalents in other currencies of the EPC Contracting States is given in the "Guidance for the payment of fees, costs and prices", which is published regularly in the Official Journal of the EPO.
Detailed information about the extension system is published in OJ EPO 1994, 75.
For technical reasons, the forms embedded in this article are only available in the PDF version.
1 he revised form (reference "EPA/EPO/OEB Form 1001 03.94") is expected to be available as from the end of February 1994. It is obtainable free of charge from the EPO - preferably from Vienna, but also from Munich, The Hague and Berlin - as well as from the central industrial property offices of the Contracting States.
3 See in this connection pages 75 et seq. of this issue of the Official Journal.