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EPC 2000 was drafted with a number of aims:
to harmonise the EPC, dating from 1973, with new developments in international law such as TRIPS and the Patent Law Treaty to make the procedure for future changes easier by transferring some subject matter from the Articles of the EPC to the Implementing Regulations; and to provide a sound legal basis for the EPO practice of allocating all search and examination functions on a case to a single Examiner, which had been forbidden under the original EPC.
This wholesale revision has required a substantial renumbering of the EPC 2000 Rules (but not the Articles). In drafting EPC 2000, the opportunity was also taken to delete redundant provisions of the EPC.
EPC 2000 will enter into force on or before December 13, 2007, and it will introduce a number of changes to the European patent procedure. The main changes will be in the areas of:
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