Jurre Laddé

On April 1, 2024, a new fee system will enter into force at the European Patent Office (EPO). Apart from moderate fee increases (more than 7% below the real inflation rate) and the abolishment of several rarely used fees, the new fee system introduces a new fee reduction scheme for so-called micro-entities.

The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) on October 10 issued its (consolidated) decision G1/22 & G2/22, which promises to significantly reduce priority issues for applicants—U.S.applicants in particular. When the applicants for a European patent application differ from the applicants on the priority application, the EPO employs the well-established “joint applicants approach” to evaluate the priority claim’s validity. For the priority claim to be valid, and assuming there’s been no transfer of the priority right, all applicants of the priority application must also be among the applicants of the subsequent European patent application. The table below outlines various scenarios and indicates whether the priority claim is valid according to the joint applicants approach.