The EPC and PCT-EPO Guidelines 2022, published in preview mode last month, entered into force on 1 March 2022, superseding the editions of March 2021.

The new EPC and PCT-EPO Guidelines are published in the three official languages of the EPO website where they can be downloaded free of charge in PDF format or accessed section-by-section in HTML format. The PDF versions consist of a “clean copy” as well as a version showing all modifications. Within each section of the HTML version, comparison with the previous version can be made by ticking the Show modifications box in the top right-hand corner of the web page. A full list of the sections which have been amended, together with corresponding hyperlinks, is published alongside the corresponding Guidelines.

A public user consultation on the 2022 edition of the Guidelines has been run and the anonymised comments were discussed within the SACEPO Working Party on Guidelines in May 2022. To read the EPO’s announcement in full and for a link to the Guidelines, click here.