Previews of the New EPO Guidelines for 2025 Have Now Been Published

The EPO has issued previews of the new Guidelines which will officially enter into force on 1 April 2025. From 1 April, there will be three sets of Guidelines provided by the EPO. These are:

1. the Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office ("EPC Guidelines");
2. the Guidelines for Search and Examination at the European Patent Office as PCT Authority ("PCT-EPO Guidelines"); and
3. the Unitary Patent Guidelines (“UP Guidelines”).

The first two sets of Guidelines (EPC Guidelines and PCT-EPO Guidelines) have been available for many years and relate to the practices and procedures for the examination of European application and patents, and for the examination of international applications where the EPO is the PCT authority. The updated versions will come into force on 1 April 2025, but the previews available here and here allow the changes to be reviewed in advance.

The third set of Guidelines (UP Guidelines) is new and outlines the practices and procedures relating to Unitary Patents. A preview of the Guidelines is available here. As with the other Guidelines, the UP Guidelines will be updated annually.

In order to streamline and consolidate the legal resources the EPO provides, the three sets of Guidelines incorporate information found previously in three guides, namely: the European Patent Guide, the Euro-PCT Guide, and the Unitary Patent Guide. The EPO plans to abolish these three guides. Since the new Guidelines are coming into force at the slightly later date of 1 April 2025 (as opposed to 1 March in previous years), users will have more time to consider the preview versions before they become official.

We look forward to reviewing the Guidelines and considering their impact on day-to-day practice. If you have any questions regarding the Guidelines, please do not hesitate to contact your usual J A Kemp advisor.