1. Fee payments to the EPO bank account at Commerzbank AG must be made in EUR and transferred without charge to the payee.

2. On the bank transfer, the payer must give the following payment-reference information:

• patent application number (not the seven-digit publication number)
• fee code(s)
• amount for each fee code

2.1 European patent applications and international applications entering the European phase (EP)

The following nine-digit number followed by the fee codes and amounts must be given:

Example: "EPXXXXXXXX.X, code XXX – amount, code XXX – amount"

NB: Payers must give a complete nine-digit application number, including the dot between the eighth and ninth digits, and should make sure that no digits have been transposed. Also, the application number should start with EP and not contain any blanks.

2.2 International applications (PCT)

The following ten-digit number followed by the fee codes and amounts must be given:

Example: "PCT/USXXXX/XXXXXX, code XXX – amount, code XXX – amount, code XXX – amount".

NB: Payers must give a complete ten-digit application number, and should make sure that no digits have been transposed. Also, the application number should start with "PCT/country code" and not contain any blanks.

3. Payers are strongly recommended to make separate transfers for each application, to enable the Office to establish immediately the purpose of payment, as required by Article 6(1) of the Rules relating to Fees (RFees). This will also ensure timeliness, quality and transparency of fee payments, bearing in mind that Form 1010 is being discontinued with effect from 1 December 2017 (see the notice from the European Patent Office dated 27 September 2017 concerning revision of the Arrangements for deposit accounts (ADA) and their annexes, supplementary publication 5, OJ EPO 2017).

For those exceptional cases where the payment-reference field of the (electronic) bank transfer form is too small for all the data needed to ensure immediate allocation of the payment (see point 2 above), you should ask your bank for technical assistance. You may also provide the EPO with the missing data, preferably by completing the "fee payment" tab within e.g. Form 1038E, 1001E or 1200E via Online Filing (OLF) or the EPO's case management system (CMS, the new online filing tool) by first selecting "bank transfer" as mode of payment and then indicating, in the "fee selection" tab, the fee codes covered by your transfer.

4. Payments to replenish deposit accounts must be made to the EPO bank account at Commerzbank AG, giving the number of the EPO deposit account concerned (eight-digit number starting with 28) in the reference field of the bank transfer, preceded by the word "replenishment" (or "repl", if the payment-reference field is too small) or "deposit".

Examples: "replenishment 28XXXXXX", "repl 28XXXXXX" or "deposit 28XXXXXX".

This information is essential to allow correct and timely booking of replenishments on the deposit account.

This notice enters into force on 1 December 2017 and supersedes the important information about fee payment published in OJ EPO 2015, A65.