Article 8

EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE

Information from the EPO

Technical specifications for electronic priority documents under Article 2 of the decision of the President of the European Patent Office dated 16 January 2025 concerning the issuing of electronic priority documents

Certified copies of European patent applications and international (PCT) applications (priority documents) issued by the EPO in electronic format will consist of a package, in a single ZIP file, comprising the following artefacts:

1. A substantive folder, as a ZIP file, containing the following artefacts:

• the certified copy document in PDF format containing a front page with a facsimile signature, the description, claims, drawings, if any, and the abstract;
• if applicable, sequence listings in the originally filed format (TXT format for WIPO ST.25-compliant sequence listings or XML format for WIPO ST.26-compliant sequence listings), compressed as a ZIP file;
• a table of contents in XML format;

2. A certification document.

A certification document in PDF format will be included in the package alongside the substantive folder ZIP file. The certification document will show the application number and date of filing, as well as the hash of the substantive folder ZIP file, calculated using SHA-256, and the timestamp of the advanced electronic seal based on a qualified certificate according to the eIDAS Regulation.1

The electronic seal is embedded in the certification document and the nature and timestamp of the seal is also visible for printing. For validation purposes, details of the seal can be checked using standard electronic signature viewing tools.