Tag: fees

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Euro-PCTs and EPO fee increase

The European Patent Office (EPO) will increase a wide range of official fees with effect from 1 April 2026. As with previous fee adjustments, many applicants are planning to secure the lower rates by ensuring that all relevant fees are paid on or before 31 March 2026. For standard (EP direct) European patent applications, this approach is usually straightforward: if the fee is validly paid before the increase takes effect, the lower amount generally applies. However, applicants entering the European phase of a PCT application should exercise caution.

When the 31‑month deadline for European phase entry falls on or after 1 April 2026, simply paying the fees before that date may not be sufficient because the EPO does not start processing a Euro-PCT application before the 31-month time limit (Rule 159(1) EPC) has expired.

To ensure that the lower pre‑increase fees remain applicable, applicants should consider submitting a request for early processing under Article 23(2) or 40(2) PCT. Only when such a request is filed on or before 31 March 2026 will the EPO process the entry early, allowing the lower fees to apply. Applicants with PCT applications approaching the end of the international phase should therefore review their timelines carefully and, where appropriate, file a request for early processing to avoid unintended exposure to higher fees.

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EPO administrative fee changes from 01 April 2024

Various changes to the EPO’s fee structure will enter into effect on 01 April 2024. See the EPO’s News Website. Both the reduced fees for SMUs and the increase of some renewal fees have been widely discussed; the visitors of my website will have read about this on, e.g., Juve Patents, the Kluwer patent blog and various LinkedIn posts from valued colleagues working in the patent profession.

One issue that appears to have received less attention is that the EPO’s recent decisions also affect the administrative fees (which tend to receive less attention as compared to the fees associated with filing, search, examination, and renewals). Importantly, the fee for registering a transfer will be reduced to nil provided that the request is filed via MyEPO. See EPO OJ 2024, A5 – fee code 022, item 1.1.

While one might think that the present fee of 120 EUR is not a big deal, the EPO applies this fee per application or per patent, even if the same evidence for the transfer is used in all of the applications/patents. In the case of a merger or demerger of companies, registering the transfer of applications and patents (for the latter the patents during the opposition period or in oppositions) can often result in total administrative fees of several hundred thousand Euros in the currently active administrative fee regime.

It is rare for me to applaud the EPO’s fee structure and the continually increasing fee amounts, which occasionally make me wonder whether the EPO is about to price itself out of the market (in particular when compared to, e.g., the GPTO’s fees). The reduction in the administrative fee for registering a transfer, while triggered by the desire to incentivize the use of MyEPO, is in my view a great step, when considering how much work can be involved in checking the entitlement of the signatories of a transfer declaration (e.g., when a chain of authorisations needs to be verified to affirm the signatory authority of the signatories). The reduction in the administrative fee for registering a transfer, when filed via MyEPO, will make it much easier to convince applicants/patentees that it is generally a good idea to maintain the EPO register data aligned with material ownership when a transfer has taken place.