Report of the Online Communications Committee


J. Gray (GB), ChairJ. Gray (GB), Chair


OCC members met on 29 June 2021. The next main meeting with the EPO is scheduled end October or early November 2021. In the meantime, OCC members and associates are involved in ongoing discussions and trials with the EPO on a variety of topics, including:

  • Online Filing 2.0 (and closure of CMS)
  • DOCX filing including issues of standardisation and compatibility, security, guidelines and templates etc..
  • Testing “New User Area” prototype and forthcoming pilot
  • the EPO working group on a new “Front Office” for National patent filings
  • Revision of PCT rules about the authentic text, and circumstances in which it may be corrected.

Some members of OCC participated in meetings of SACEPO and its working groups, which nowadays include representatives from the US and Asia.

We also contributed to the design of the EPO consultation on the use of videoconferencing for oral proceedings, which has been trialled in the pandemic.

Members with particular concerns about the online systems, particularly problems that cannot be resolved through the support services of the EPO itself, are welcome to contact the committee by email at occ@patentepi.org.


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