A0 notice – publication of Euro PCT applications in German, English or French

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Patent Information Marketing
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A0 notice – publication of Euro PCT applications in German, English or French

Post by Patent Information Marketing » Sun Mar 01, 2020 11:36 pm

According to article 153(3) of the European Patent Convention (EPC) the international publication of a Euro-PCT application in an official language of the European Patent Office shall take the place of the publication of the European patent application. This means that in such cases the EPO will not (re-)publish this application as a European patent (EP) application. However, according to the cited EPC article, this fact shall be mentioned in the European Patent Bulletin.

In classic Espacenet, when navigating to the original document view, you would find a A0 notice which is not an official publication but an information sheet indicating that the Euro-PCT takes place of the publication of the European patent application. It usually contains also a reference to the Euro-PCT (WO) publication and the corresponding article in the EPC. You can print or download this A0 notice from classic Espacenet.

In (new) Espacenet, when content is not available, it is replaced by suitable content from another document. This applies not only to the above mentioned cases according to article 153(3) EPC but to all cases where content from a certain document is missing or is in another language. (New) Espacenet is then indicating that content is taken from another publication but doesn’t differentiate why it has been replaced. In case you need this specific information you might also want to take a look at the authoritative information regarding EP publications which you can always find in the European Patent Bulletin or the European Patent Register. Or you go to classic Espacenet to retrieve the corresponding A0 notice if you prefer.

Example:

In case of publication of EP3353832A1 this is replaced by the Euro-PCT publication WO2018109488A1 according to article 153(3) EPC.

In classic Espacenet you will find the A0 notice pointing to the respective family member of EP3353832, namely WO2018109488A1 where you also find the original document replacing the EP publication.

If you follow the document link to the Register you will find in the bibliographic part the information that “The application has been published by WIPO in one of the EPO official languages on 21.06.2018” as well as the reference in which edition of the European Patent Bulletin [2018/31] this information has been published, in this case in week 31 in 2018.

Looking up the publication EP3353832A1 in (new) Espacenet will provide you with the information indicating e.g. “Original document not available for EP3353832A1 – original document of corresponding document: WO2018109488A1” so you can directly access and download or print the original document, namely the Euro-PCT WO2018109488A1 replacing the EP publication.

We hope this helps to clarify the situation. We are also looking into possible solutions to provide you with more comprehensive information in (new) Espacenet in the near future.
Kind regards

Patent Information Marketing


Patent Information Marketing
Posts: 358
Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2017 1:16 pm

Re: A0 notice – publication of Euro PCT applications in German, English or French

Post by Patent Information Marketing » Thu Apr 09, 2020 2:35 pm

Update for (new) Espacenet:

With the latest release, the so-called Euro-PCT notices (also known as A0 notices) are now available also in (new) Espacenet. Viewing the original document you will find the first page being the Euro-PCT notice followed by the Euro-PCT (WO) publication itself. For downloading via the three-dot menu you have the choice to download each of them separately. Of course, the download of the front pages will continue to take the front page of Euro-PCT (WO) publication.

We believe that this is good news to all of you who have been waiting for this feature.
Kind regards

Patent Information Marketing


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