MUNICH - As of December 1, 2025, the European Patent Office (EPO) will offer enhanced MyEPO features to simplify authorization management and will register general authorizations only where issued for employees of a party to proceedings, according to the official website of EPO. 

New feature in MyEPO for employees of an entity that is a party to proceedings

MyEPO, the central part of the EPO’s suite of online services for the patent granting process, will be enhanced to provide a new feature for registering and managing general authorizations issued for employees of a party to proceedings. This digitalization measure will mean a more streamlined and user-friendly experience and empower users by giving them greater autonomy to register and update these general authorizations.

General authorizations now registered only for employees of an entity that is a party to proceedings

This change in the EPO’s practice comes as a result of recent simplification measures aimed at improving efficiency and user-friendliness.

Since professional representatives, legal practitioners and associations are normally exempt from filing general authorizations, the EPO will stop registering and updating those issued for these representatives. Previously registered general authorizations will cease to have effect and so it will no longer be possible to refer to them.

In exceptional cases where an authorization is required – for instance when there has been a change of representative without the withdrawal of the previous representative or when there are doubts as to a representative's entitlement to act – the EPO will ask the new representative to file an authorization (either individual or general) in the proceedings in question. This can be done easily and conveniently by submitting a signed electronic copy of the authorization, using one of the EPO’s permitted online filing services.

For employees of an entity that is a party to proceedings, the EPO will continue to register and update general authorizations under Article 133(3), first sentence, EPC since authorizations are still always required for this user group. Employees may either file an individual authorization or refer to an already registered general authorization in the proceedings in question. The registration numbers of general authorizations registered before December 1, 2025, will remain valid for employees.