Article 153

1. The European Patent Office shall be
a) a designated Office for any State party to this Convention in respect of which the PCT is in force, which is designated in the international application and for which the applicant wishes to obtain a European patent, and
b) an elected Office, if the applicant has elected a State designated pursuant to letter a).

2. An international application for which the European Patent Office is a designated or elected Office, and which has been accorded an international date of filing, shall be equivalent to a regular European application (Euro-PCT application).

3. 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 and shall be mentioned in the European Patent Bulletin.

4. If the Euro-PCT application is published in another language, a translation into one of the official languages shall be filed with the European Patent Office, which shall publish it. Subject to Article 67, paragraph 3, the provisional protection under Article 67, paragraphs 1 and 2, shall be effective from the date of that publication.

5. The Euro-PCT application shall be treated as a European patent application and shall be considered as comprised in the state of the art under Article 54, paragraph 3, if the conditions laid down in paragraph 3 or 4 and in the Implementing Regulations are fulfilled.

6. The international search report drawn up in respect of a Euro-PCT application or the declaration replacing it, and their international publication, shall take the place of the European search report and the mention of its publication in the European Patent Bulletin.

7. A supplementary European search report shall be drawn up in respect of any Euro-PCT application under paragraph 5. The Administrative Council may decide that the supplementary search report is to be dispensed with or that the search fee is to be reduced.

UPC Case Law

UPC Court of Appeal

IPPT20251105, UPC CoA, Seoul Viosys v expert
Added matter (Article 138(1)(c) EPC, Article 123(2) EPC, Article 153(4) EPC). The court may, ex officio, find that the skilled person cannot derive a corresponding disclosure from the earlier application. This finding must be determined on the basis of the skilled person's understanding when reading the earlier application in its entirety. With a translation of an international application into one of the official languages of the EPO the applicant submits the application documents to the EPO in the language of the proceedings and it can be assumed prima facie that such a translation submitted by the patent applicant himself accurately reflects the content of the international application in the language of the application. Third parties and the court may, when assessing the inadmissible extension, rely prima facie on the translation of the application submitted by the patent proprietor to the EPO and published by it. If the patent proprietor claims that this translation is incorrect, he must prove the inaccuracy.