Further to the decision dated 9 May 2018 concerning the electronic filing of documents,^[ 1 ] and having regard to Rule 2 EPC and Rule 89bis.1 and 2 PCT, the President of the European Patent Office has decided as follows:

Article 1

Software to be used for electronic filing

(1) Electronic filings in accordance with Article 1 of the above-mentioned decision dated 9 May 2018 made using the EPO Online Filing (OLF) software must be made using version 5.12 (build 5.0.12.176) or later.

(2) Once this decision has entered into force, electronic filings using versions earlier than version 5.12 (build 5.0.12.176) will no longer be accepted by the EPO's receiving server.

Article 2

Previous decisions superseded

When this decision enters into force, the decision of the President of the European Patent Office dated 13 June 2019 concerning the EPO Online Filing software to be used for the electronic filing of documents (OJ EPO 2019, A64) will cease to have effect.

Article 3

Entry into force

This decision will enter into force on 1 December 2020.

Done at Munich, 21 September 2020

António Campinos

President