URGENT - 10 days included yes or no?

This question is often asked when it comes to deadlines at the #EuropeanPatentOffice. But in the foreseeable future it will be a thing of the past.

The 10-day delivery fiction for EPO postal communications is outdated in the face of the digital age, and the EPO intends to abolish it in just over a year.

From November 2023, an official communication sent by the EPO will no longer be deemed to have been served 10 days after the date on the document, but on the date on the document.

Until then, there is still enough time to adapt the docketing systems to the abolition of the 10-day delivery fiction, although many users already note the deadlines without the additional time.??

Nevertheless, the rule change means a change for EP representatives. This is because, especially in the case of short deadlines, haste is then required in order to forward the corresponding official communication to the applicants or foreign representatives without loss of time.

While the loss of 10 days for (extendable) 4-month periods is not really significant, 10 days less for the shorter and, above all, non-extendable (!) periods is clearly (more) significant. One thinks in particular of the 1-month period under Rule 137(4) EPC (“basis for amendments” – Article 123(2) EPC) and the 2-month period under Rule 63 EPC (“incomplete search”).

The EPO may consider that certain things can be dealt with in less than two months, but sometimes what the EPO considers a minor (formal) objection turns out to be a major problem for the applicant.

The removal of the 10-day notification period under Rule 126(2) EPC is part of a package of rule changes requested by the EPO to “adapt the rules of the EPC to the digital age”, which have now been passed by the Administrative Council of the EPO (the EPO is still to confirm).

It is not known whether, for example, the time limit under Rule 137(4) EPC will be increased from one to two months as part of the amendment to Rule 126(2) EPC....

What do you think of this idea?