How to obtain a European Patent quicker

Filing and the first key decisions

From the outset, two decisions have a major impact on timing.

First, if speed is important, you can immediately ask the European Patent Office (EPO) to handle your case on an accelerated basis. The EPO offers a free acceleration program (PACE) that allows your application to be processed with priority both in the search phase and during examination. Your attorney can file a brief request without payment of any official fee. The EPO will then try to issue the search report, examination reports and other communications earlier than usual. In return, the EPO expects you to respond promptly to its communications.

Secondly, examination in Europe does not start automatically. The EPO only begins substantive examination once you have filed a request for examination and paid the examination fee. If you want to move quickly, you should therefore instruct your European patent attorney to request examination either on filing or as soon as possible afterwards, instead of waiting until the last permissible moment.

If your European application comes from an international (PCT) application, you also need to think about timing of entry into the European regional phase. The standard time limit for entering the European phase is 31 months from the earliest priority or filing date. However, you do not have to wait that long. You can choose to enter the European phase earlier by requesting what the EPO calls early processing. Early processing is a formal request asking the EPO to begin handling the European phase application immediately, without waiting for the expiry of the 31‑month period. If you combine early entry and early processing with a request for acceleration, your Euro‑PCT case can move much more quickly through the search and examination stages than if you simply wait for the normal deadlines to expire.

Aside from the procedural aspects, it can be equally important to have a European patent attorney review and adapt the application to meet EPO‑specific requirements before filing. Many applicants try to minimize upfront costs by filing without such a review, but this often leads to additional attorney work, longer timelines and higher overall costs than if the application had been properly aligned with EPO practice from the outset.

The R161/162 Communication and Search

When a PCT application enters the European phase, the EPO issues a communication under rules 161 and 162. This is an important procedural step for both content and timing. In this communication, the EPO typically does two things. It invites you to react to the written opinion from the PCT phase, for example by amending the claims and/or responding to the objections of the written opinion, and it requires you to pay any outstanding claims fees not paid upon filing. A firm deadline of six months is set for this response. If you reply quickly, with clear amendments and arguments that address the PCT opinion in full, and explicitly waive the remaining response term, the EPO can move efficiently into the next stage. This may be a supplementary European search or, if the international search was already done by the EPO, directly into substantive examination.

In many cases it is possible to avoid having a separate R161/162 communication at all. On entry into the European phase, if you pay all due claims fees and ensure that, if the international search was done by the EPO, any potential substantive objections are addressed, you can actively waive the R161/162 communication already upon filing. The EPO can then move directly to the next step (supplementary search or examination), which removes one potential pause in the procedure and shortens the overall timeline with at least six months.

Once the R161/162 issues have been dealt with, the EPO will carry out any supplementary European search and issue a European search report and accompanying written opinion. If acceleration has been requested through the PACE program, the EPO will aim to issue this report sooner than in a standard case.

For direct European filings (not based on PCT), there is no R161/162 communication. The procedure begins with the EPO performing a search and sending you the search report together with a written opinion on patentability. Here too, the speed and completeness of your reaction to that opinion influences how quickly the application can proceed into examination.

The R70 Communication and Examination

Substantive examination is the stage at which the EPO assesses in detail whether your patent application meets all legal requirements, including novelty and inventive step. The transition into examination is formally linked to the communication under Rule 70 EPC, which is issued shortly after the search report is available.

This communication asks you to confirm whether, in light of the search results, you wish to proceed with examination. Also here, you are given another fixed term of six months to respond.

However, it is often possible to avoid having a separate R70 communication altogether. If, on filing (or on entry into the European phase), you already request examination, pay the examination fee and clearly waive the R70 communication, the EPO will progress the application directly towards substantive examination as soon as the search is available.

From a timing perspective, if you want a fast grant and have not waived the R70 step upon filing, you should not wait until the end of the period allowed under the R70 communication. Instead, you should confirm as soon as possible that you wish to proceed and check that the examination request and fee are already on file. The earlier you complete this step, the sooner the EPO can begin its substantive examination of your application.

Once examination is deemed to have started, the EPO studies the application and issues one or more communications setting out any objections it has. These objections may concern lack of novelty or inventive step, clarity of the claims, unsupported subject matter, or other requirements. The communications must be responded to by a time limit of up to 6 months. To save time, a response can of course be submitted early and not close to the set deadline.

Patent Prosecution Highway

In addition to the EPO’s own acceleration program, you can often speed up examination by relying on work already carried out by another patent office through the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH).

The PPH is available where a partner office, such as the United States, Japanese, Korean, Chinese or certain other patent offices, has examined a corresponding application and indicated that at least some claims are allowable. In that situation, you can ask the EPO to process your European application more quickly based on that positive foreign result.

In practice, a PPH request involves three main elements. Your European patent attorney adapts your European claims so that they correspond to the claims that were found allowable by the foreign office. Your attorney then files the PPH request at the EPO, together with copies of the relevant foreign documents. If the formal requirements are met, the EPO places your application in a fast track for examination.

The EPO will still apply its own standards and may raise objections even where a foreign office has allowed the claims. However, starting from a set of claims that has already been found patentable elsewhere frequently reduces the number of examination rounds needed in Europe and will often shorten the overall time to grant. The PPH can be combined with the EPO’s own acceleration program and with other timing measures, such as early processing for Euro-PCT applications and waiving of the procedural communications mentioned above.

The R71(3) Communication and the grant procedure

If, after one or more rounds of examination, the EPO is satisfied that your application meets all requirements, it will issue a communication under rule 71(3). This is often referred to as the “intention to grant” and marks the point where the EPO is ready to grant your patent.

In the R71(3) communication, the EPO sends you the text of the patent as it intends to grant it. You must then formally approve the suggested text, pay the grant and publication fees, and file the required translations of the claims into the other official languages of the EPO.

If you accept the text as proposed and promptly complete these steps, the EPO will usually issue the decision to grant and publish the granted patent within a couple of months. This is the quickest route to grant. If, however, you wish to make changes to the text, you can request amendments when responding to the R71(3) communication. This can possibly lead to a further round of examination and thereby delay the grant.

Once the patent is granted and published, you then deal with any required national validation steps or request for unitary effect. These post‑grant actions affect where and how your patent is enforceable, but they do not alter the timing of the grant itself.

Strategic considerations: when to use speed and when to hold back

Only after you understand these procedural steps is it useful to decide how aggressively to use acceleration in any particular case.

Pursuing a fast grant makes most sense where there is a clear commercial need. For example, if a European patent is needed to support an upcoming product launch, negotiations with investors or licensees, or enforcement against competitors, you will generally want to request examination early, use the EPO’s acceleration program, respond quickly to the R161/162 and R70 communications (or waive them entirely), draw on foreign positive results where possible, and act promptly on the R71(3) communication.

However, acceleration carries trade‑offs. Concentrating attorney work into a shorter period can increase short‑term costs. Moving quickly also reduces the time available to adapt the application to evolving technology or market information. There is also a risk that, in the interest of speed, you might accept claim amendments that are narrower than necessary, potentially weakening the long‑term value of the patent.

For inventions where the commercial strategy is less certain, or where significant further development is expected, it can be more appropriate to allow the procedure to progress at a normal pace. You might still avoid unnecessary delays, but you may choose not to use every acceleration option, and you may make full use of the response periods under the R161/162 and R70 communications.

Our experience is that many applicants adopt a mixed approach. They identify certain core and high‑value inventions that merit full acceleration and handle other applications more flexibly.

How Bryn Aarflot can assist

In summary, while the process of obtaining patent protection is seldom referred to as very quick, it can be sped up by taking one or more of the steps outlined above. Bryn Aarflot's team of patent attorneys and IP administrators are specialized in EPO practice and use this expertise every day to turn procedure into a commercial advantage for our clients.

Our proactive approach allows us to tailor a European filing and prosecution strategy to your specific needs, whether you prioritize rapid grant, flexibility for ongoing development, or a carefully balanced approach between scope, speed and budget.