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Important notice of 6 November 2024

The DPMA will cease to accept electronic applications filed using the EPO tool eOLF at the end of the year

The European Patent Office (EPO) will phase out its electronic filing tool eOLF – formerly "epoline" – in the foreseeable future. As a consequence, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) will cease to offer the option to file electronic patent applications via eOLF as of 1 January 2025. Regardless of when they were issued to the users, all signature cards of the EPO (smart cards) will expire by 31 December 2024, because the EPO smart card login support will end for eOLF.

This means that, from this date, it will no longer be possible to use eOLF for the filing of

• national German patent applications; and
• PCT applications with the DPMA as receiving Office.

With respect to the two IP rights mentioned above, i.e. the national German patent application and the PCT application with the DPMA as receiving Office, the DPMA’s well-proven filing software DPMAdirektPro is available. Information on what the software offers, how to use it and how to adjust the settings is available on our E-filing/DPMAdirekt page. To use DPMAdirektPro, you need a signature card in order to sign electronically. For details, please see the Digital signature section. Please make sure that you get the signature card in good time before 31 December 2024.

To file PCT applications with the DPMA as receiving Office, you can also use the ePCT system via the IP Portal of the World Intellectual Property Organization (without signature). Information on this is available on the WIPO website.

Last updated: 6 November 2024