Article 47

EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE

Information from the EPO

Notice from the European Patent Office dated 7 July 2025 concerning the registration of general authorisations and related new MyEPO features

1. With a view to simplifying its administrative and procedural processes, the EPO is changing its practice on registering general authorisations: as of 1 December 2025, it will only register those issued for employees of an entity that is a party to proceedings.1

2. General authorisations may be filed under Rule 152(4) EPC as way of enabling parties to authorise representatives to act for them in all their patent-related transactions before the EPO. At present, the Legal Division2 registers these general authorisations and issues a registration number that a representative can cite in proceedings instead of submitting an individual authorisation.

3. Since professional representatives, legal practitioners and associations are exempt in general from filing an authorisation, and may be required to do so in exceptional circumstances only, the EPO will stop registering and updating general authorisations issued for them. If they are exceptionally required to submit an authorisation, they may file either an individual or a general authorisation in the proceedings in question. Given that authorisations may be signed electronically, an easy and convenient way of doing this is to file an electronic copy of the authorisation, using one of the EPO's permitted online filing services.3 It will no longer be possible for this group of representatives to refer to a previously registered general authorisation, as its registration will cease to have effect for them.

4. The EPO will nevertheless continue to register and update general authorisations issued for employees acting for a party under Article 133(3), first sentence, EPC since authorisations are still always required for this group of users. Employees may either file an individual authorisation or refer to an already registered general authorisation in the proceedings in question. The registration numbers of general authorisations registered before 1 December 2025 will remain valid for employees.

5. This change in practice will also apply to procedures relating to European patents with unitary effect.

6. In order to make the process more streamlined and user-friendly, it will be possible in future to register and manage general authorisations issued for employees via the EPO's web-based service MyEPO. More information can be found in the feature guide.4

7. It is recalled that, in addition to handwritten signatures, the EPO continues to accept a broad range of electronic signatures on authorisations. These include facsimile signatures,5 text-string signatures6 and digital signatures. For more information on this, please see the notice from the EPO dated 8 July 2024 concerning the signing and filing of authorisations.7