EPO starts automatic refund process

From October 7, 2024, the European Patent Office will initiate an automatic refund procedure to automatically refund undue annual fees to the payment source, thereby reducing the administrative burden on applicants and the EPO.

Under its strategic plan to 2028, the EPO will introduce measures to further simplify the processing of undue annual fees and eliminate the thousands of refunds that are unnecessarily processed each year. From October 7, 2024, debit orders related to undue annual fees for European patent applications filed via EPO Online Filing (OLF) or Online Filing 2.0 (OLF 2.0) will be automatically detected and the EPO will refund the amount directly to the source of payment. This will make the current cumbersome refund request procedure redundant, thereby reducing the administrative burden on applicants and the EPO.

From 2023, the EPO has introduced for the first time a mechanism for reimbursement of outstanding payments of the Unitary Patent. Due to the fact that many applicants or agencies have improperly paid the annual fees for European patent applications by debit card through OLF or OLF 2.0, which has led to the need to submit refund requests, the advantage of the new EPO payment method CFP is that it only accepts annual fees that are due, and is therefore considered the preferred tool for paying fees. All other outstanding fees will continue to be refunded in accordance with the applicable refund procedures.

Further improvements to the EPO's online payment system are planned for 2025 as part of continuing efforts to simplify the operation of the European patent system for the benefit of all applicants and users.