Updates To The EPO Guidelines For Examination

The EPO have announced their upcoming amendments of the Guidelines for Examination which will enter into force on 1 March 2022. A number of notable amendments to the Guidelines are scheduled; we will follow with more detailed discussions regarding the changes to Description Amendments and Electronic Signatures of Assignments, whereas here we will look at some of the other significant updates with regard to Priority, the Designation of Inventor, the Claims Fee, Extension of Periods under Rule 134(1), Double Patenting, Selection Inventions, Unity, and Oral Proceedings.

Priority

In view of the decision of T844/18, Part A-II, 6.1 has been updated to clarify the EPO's conventional practice regarding entitlement to claim priority from applications having multiple applicants. For a later application to validly claim priority from an earlier application that has joint applicants, either "all these applicants must be amongst the applicants of the later European patent