EPO reduces fees for micro-entities to boost access to European patent system

The EPO’s Administrative Council has announced a 30% reduction in the filing and examination fees paid by micro-entities, including microenterprises, natural persons, non-profit organisations, universities and public research organisations.

Effective from 1 April 2024, the office hopes to encourage a higher number of entities from this sub-set to engage with European patent legislation and file patents, across a number of industries, more frequently. In a separate but related initiative, it has also made fee-reducing provisions regarding EPO documents filed in languages outside of and including English, French or German.

EPO fee-reduction initiative

While the EPO published the decision on 14 December 2023 (CA/D 16/23), it announced the changes on its website on 31 January 2024. The amendments cover changes to Rule 6 of the European Patent Convention and Article 14 of the Rules relating to Fees, as well as the adoption of new Rules 7a and 7b EPC, which cover the reduction in fees for micro-entities. The amendments apply to fee payments made on or after 1 April for European patent applications and Euro-PCT applications which have entered the European phase, irrespective of their filing date.

According to a definition by the European Commission, on which the EPO bases its own definition, a ‘micro enterprise’ is as a company with “fewer than ten employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet below €2 million”.

From 1 April, reductions for these companies cover the filing fee; the fee for a European search or the fee for a supplementary European search in the case of a Euro-PCT application searched by an International Searching Authority (ISA) other than the EPO; the examination fee; the previously paid international search fee where the EPO acted as ISA; the designation fee; the fee for grant; and the renewal fees for the European patent application.

Micro-entities and language exemptions

Currently, fee reductions are only available for micro-entities which are based in an EPO member state, and which use a language outside of the official three of English, French and German. Existing exemptions also include SMEs, although they will not benefit from the new rules.

Now a separate language-related reduction applies to the patent filing fee and examination fee under the scheme pertaining to Rule 7a(3) EPC. While this applies to micro-entities only, the language-fee reduction can be applied irrespective of nationality or domicile.

The EPO has confirmed that it is possible to combine the various fee reduction schemes. An applicant may be eligible for fee reductions under both Rule 7a(1) and Rule 7a(3) EPC, which cover the micro-entity and language fee reduction schemes, respectively. However, the office also has the power to carry out random checks on the status of fee-lowering applications during the grant procedure. This is to ensure all organisations fall within the meaning of Rule 7a(2) and/or (3) EPC.

Raising fees elsewhere

However, micro-entities are only eligible for the fee reductions if they have filed fewer than five applications with relevant dates in the five years preceding the relevant date of the application, for which the fee reduction is requested. They must also remain a micro-entity under the European Commission definition.

Taking the EPO’s example, a party filing four applications on 15 February 2025 and having filed a fifth application on 30 March 2018 would be eligible for the fee reduction. However, if the party had instead filed the fifth application on 30 March 2021, it would no longer qualify.

Furthermore, the lowering of fees for micro-entities comes amid a raising of application fees elsewhere. For other organisations outside of the micro-entity definition, the third and fourth year of renewal fees will rise by at most 30%, although in some cases only around 8%. The EPO has reduced the renewal for the sixth year by 2%. The office last revised the fee structure one year ago, for payments made on or after 1 April 2023. At this time, all fees increased by 5%.