Article 4

Notice from the European Patent Office dated 2 December 2025 concerning the updating of the Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office

By decision of the President of the EPO dated 2 December 2025 and pursuant to Article 10(2) EPC, the Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office (EPC Guidelines) have been amended in line with the EPO's policy to provide an annual update. The amended EPC Guidelines, which will enter into force on 1 April 2026, will be published as a complete April 2026 edition that will supersede the April 2025 edition.

The April 2026 edition of the EPC Guidelines will be published only in electronic form and will be available in all three official languages on the EPO website at epo.org.

The EPC Guidelines will be available in PDF format – as a clean copy and a version showing all modifications – and in HTML format. Within each section of the HTML version, the latest amendments can be viewed by selecting the Show modifications box in the upper right corner. A full list of the sections which have been amended, together with corresponding hyperlinks, will also be available.

As a courtesy service, a preview of the English version will be made available on the EPO website at the beginning of February 2026 for advance information.

Amendments have been made to all parts of the EPC Guidelines. Some of them result from case law of the EPO boards of appeal, while others are based on decisions of the President and legal or procedural changes; some updates have been made in response to user requests for further clarification of the EPO's practice. In addition, as part of an initiative to harmonise and modernise the language used in the Guidelines, the wording of Parts D and E is now simple, consistent and clearer.

Clarifications and updates regarding the EPO's practice have been incorporated throughout the Guidelines. In particular, Part A's new chapters XII-XV provide detailed information on entering the European phase; they replace chapter E‑IX, which covered the Euro-PCT procedure. The content of the new chapters has been expanded with guidance previously contained in the Euro‑PCT Guide, which has been discontinued along with the European Patent Guide and the Unitary Patent Guide. Parts B, F and G reflect BoA decisions G 1/23 and G 1/24. Updates in Parts A, C and H address the processing of colour drawings. Part F includes a new chapter on the sufficiency of disclosure of further medical use claims, while Part H clarifies Rule 80 EPC as a non‑discretionary provision. Parts D, E and G have been amended to emphasise the free evaluation of evidence and to reflect the discontinuation of the binary approach to the standard of proof, known as up-to-the-hilt and balance-of-probabilities. The deciding body, taking account of the circumstances of the case and the evidence submitted, must be convinced that an alleged fact has occurred.

Once the preview version of the 2026 edition is published in February 2026, an online user consultation on the newly published Guidelines will be launched. Detailed information about the online user consultation, which will run until mid-April 2026, will be published on the EPO website at the beginning of February 2026.