The President of the European Patent Office, having regard to Articles 5(2) and 7(2) of the Rules relating to Fees, has decided as follows:

Article 1

Credit card as a method of fee payment

Fees due to the EPO may be paid by credit card under the conditions set forth in the present decision.

Article 2

Conditions for use

Payments by credit card must be made in euro via the EPO's credit card fee payment service, using a credit card accepted by the EPO.

Article 3

Date of payment

Payment by credit card is deemed to have been made on the date on which the transaction is approved. This date is indicated in the transaction confirmation made available to the payer.

Article 4

Failure in the transaction process

(1) Where a transaction fails before it is approved, the fee payment is considered not to have been made, even if the failure in the transaction process was not attributable to the payer.

(2) Where, due to a failure in the transaction process, payment of a fee is not considered to have been made until after the expiry of the period in which it should have been made, it shall be considered that this period has been observed if evidence is provided to the EPO that, within this period, the payer has received a confirmation that the transaction was approved.

Article 5

Entry into force

This decision enters into force on 1 December 2017.

Done at Munich, 22 August 2017

Benoît BATTISTELLI

President