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Notice No. 4/2024

of the President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office of 22 November 2024 concerning the termination of the option to file via eOLF, the electronic filing program of the European Patent Office, pursuant to section 3 (4) of the Ordinance on Electronic Legal Transactions with the DPMA as of 1 January 2025

The European Patent Office (EPO) will decommission its electronic filing program eOLF – formerly epoline – in the foreseeable future. Regardless of their date of issue, all signature cards of the EPO (smart cards) will expire no later than 31 December 2024, because the EPO smart card login support will end for eOLF. As a consequence, from 1 January 2025, it will no longer be possible to use eOLF to file electronic patent applications with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA). This applies to national German patent applications and PCT applications with the DPMA as receiving Office.

In the Announcement of 22 November 2024 in the Announcements section on the Publications page of its website, the DPMA announced that, from 1 January 2025, this filing option will no longer be available within the meaning of section 3 (4) sentence 2 of the Ordinance on Electronic Legal Transactions with the DPMA (Verordnung über den elektronischen Rechtsverkehr beim Deutschen Patent- und Markenamt).

The filing program DPMAdirektPro will continue to be available for the filing of German patent applications and PCT applications with the DPMA as receiving Office. For more information on this, please visit the DPMA website.

To file PCT applications with the DPMA as receiving Office, you can also use the ePCT software via the IP Portal of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Information on this is available on the externer Link WIPO website.

For a complete overview of the current options to electronically file IP applications, please visit E-filing of IP applications.

The President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office
Eva Schewior

Last updated: 13 December 2024