The self-editable EPC and PCT reference books

No more marking a printed legal text by hand and watching the marked-up book to become outdated with the next version...
  • Monitors with folders
  • Print-on-demand samples
  • Paperbacks on shelf
  • Laptop on garden table
  • EPC.App paperbacks
  • PCT.App paperbacks
  • Paperbacks and notebook

What are the EPC.App / PCT.App?

EPC.App is an annotated European Patent Convention (EPC) and PCT.App an annotated Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which allow each user to further annotate them electronically and to receive updates from the authors while retaining individual user annotations.

EPC.App /PCT.App are printable electronic books implemented as a web browser application (App), which offer to the more than 1000 registered users:

  • to access and navigate the annotated legal text from anywhere via an internet connection
  • to adapt authors' annotations and legal contents to personal preferencesarrow_drop_down
    • remove individual authors' markings
    • change marking styles and colors
    • hide individual authors' comments and legal contents
  • to add own annotations and legal contents, which get stored in the cloudarrow_drop_down
    • markings of the legal text
    • comments as separate text blocks (with links to other parts)
    • further elements selectable from a comprehensive database of relevant legal contents
  • to receive automatic updates of legal texts and authors' comments plural times per year
  • to create a printable PDF-file as offline version or backup, which includes all self-edited content and reproduces the layout of the App
  • to order a correspondingly customized color paperback with up-to-date content and typed user comments

For whom are the EPC.App / PCT.App?

EPC.App and PCT.App are intended for both the Practitioner and the Trainee. They are dedicated to be used when preparing for the European Qualifying Examination (EQE) and for working as a Professional thereafter. They are equally suitable for the European patent administration certification (EPAC).

  • People are different. We believe that the optimum preparation for the EQE / EPAC requires an annotated EPC / PCT which is adapted to the personal needs of the respective user
  • EPC.App /PCT.App provide a platform and a starting point for doing this efficiently (video)
    • start with authors' content selections, comments, and markings
    • adapt all authors' contributions according to your wishes, and add own comments and markings
    • receive authors' updates during your exam preparation process without losing already created own annotations (video)
  • There are great books full of detailed information on the EPC / PCT
  • EPC.App / PCT.App help finding the most relevant information quickly
    • by filtering out less important information
    • by allowing electronic content search
    • by providing links to other parts of the EPC / PCT and external websites
EPC.App folder

EPC.App folder - available on request

  • It requires a lot of time and discipline to keep a once prepared EPC / PCT up-to-date
  • EPC.App / PCT.App allow doing this in a time-saving and convenient manner (video)
    • by author-provided automatic updates
    • by automatically generated notes informing which of your own comments require reconsideration, and automatic copying of unaffected comments
  • It is difficult to efficiently remember important case law retrieved over time
  • EPC.App / PCT.App allow building up your own annotated case law database (video)
    • plural thousands Boards of Appeal decisions including headnotes and web-links to the full text, and the possibility to add own summarizing comments
    • variable placement of decision (e.g. next to a related article)
    • always available in a cloud storage as well as in a printable local pdf copy
date_range13 Nov. 2023

EPC.App is now updated to legal status of 1st November 2023 – as usual in English and German with same content.

Read more about the update on our blog.

date_range3 Oct. 2023

PCT.App is now updated to legal status of 1st September 2023

This 5th edition our PCT commentary is dedicated for use in EQE 2024. Any changes of the update are automatically included in the online version on the next login. New printable PDFs as well as print-on-demand orders can be created. As usual, we further released this edition as standalone softcover book in English, available in many Amazon marketplaces (see also here), and in a German version with same content.

Read more about the update on our blog.

date_range23 Jun. 2023

We are pleased to inform that we strongly improved the quality of the print-on-demand service integrated in EPC.App and PCT.App. As of now, any new EPC.App or PCT.App color paperbacks will be printed on high density 100g image printing paper which ensures a more precise color reproduction, is thinner, more flexible and also leads to improved long-term stability of page binding at the spine.

The ordering process remains the same as explained in the FAQs or illustrated in this video

date_range1 May. 2023

Start your exam preparations better early than late. As a little motivation push, we temporarily offer a 20% discount for the first year to everyone who newly subscribes for an annual license of either EPC.App or PCT.App until 31 May 2023.

To make use of this offer, enter the discount code 6WYG96U8 in the shop when you acquire an annual subscription (with or without paperback) here.

date_range6 Apr. 2023

EPC.App is now updated to legal status of 1st April 2023 – as always in English and German with same content.

This 10th edition of our EPC commentary reflects the new 2023 EPO Guidelines, amendments to Rules 46, 49, 50, 57, 82 on format requirements and on Rule 65 on the transmittal of the search report, the Official Journal until March 2023, increased EPO fees valid as of April 2023, and the very recent case law of the Boards of Appeal (including the decision G2/21).

Read more about the update on our blog.

date_range15 Feb. 2023

We are among the finalists of the EPO coding challenge on the AI based identification of green plastics patents! Further details on our submission can be found here.

Register for the award ceremony on 23th February now!

date_range8 Nov. 2022

EPC.App is now updated to legal status of 1st November 2022 – as usual in English and German with same content.

Read more about the update on our blog.

date_range4 Nov. 2022

We are pleased to report a milestone: 1000 license orders for the online versions of EPC.App / PCT.App (not considering printed books).

This milestone confirms that the young generation of our profession is indeed valuing electronic books. More important than the overall amount is the satisfaction of our users: Over 50% of the EQE candidates are keeping their subscription after passing the exam.

  • date_range22 Sep. 2022

    We have just completed our major update of PCT.App for the legal changes in July and August. Most of the changes relate to sequence listings, which is now much more integrated into PCT. We have also changed some core structures to improve the layout and to better distribute legal provisions.

    In the self-editable online version of our PCT commentary, all changes of the update are rolled-out automatically, while personal user annotations from before the update are retained, and can be exported into a customized printable PDF offline version. As usual, we further released this September 2022 edition as standalone softcover book in English, available in many Amazon marketplaces (see also here), and in a German version with same content.

    Read more about the update on our blog.

  • date_range25 Apr. 2022

    EPC.App is now updated to legal status of 1st April 2022 – as always in English and German with same content.

    This 8th edition of our EPC commentary reflects the new 2022 EPO Guidelines, the Official Journal until March 2022, increased EPO fees valid as of April 2022, and the very recent case law of the Boards of Appeal (including the referrals G1/22 and G2/22).

    As new option of the platform, our database of legal provisions has been extended to now include almost all Official Journal articles since 2014 as annotatable full text. Selected ones have been placed in the book by us, and others can be added by yourself when shaping this book into your own EPC commentary, e.g. to obtain a further optimized EQE 2023 reference.

    Read more about the update on our new blog.

  • date_range1 Nov. 2021

    EPC.App and PCT.App are now updated to legal status of 1st November 2021 and 1st September 2021, respectively – as always in English and German with same content. The new editions of our commentaries are dedicated for use in EQE 2022.

    We also published EPC.App on Amazon as stand-alone black-and-white paperback, available in many Amazon marketplaces: GB, DE, FR, ES, IT, US, CA, JP, and of course in a German version. The same applies for PCT.App, which is available in the Amazon marketplaces: GB, DE, FR, ES, IT, US, CA, JP, and in a German version; moreover, a further version on thin 50g paper for convenient transport (1.9cm thick) is available via boekenbestellen.nl, again in English and German.

  • date_range20 Sep. 2021

    EPC.App and PCT.App have now been enhanced to address a long-felt need: a convenient full-text search function in the online App. When you log-in, you will find the new function under the menu items “Navigation”>”Search” or directly here. Further details can be found in the FAQs.

    We hope you will enjoy the more efficient navigation within EPC.App and PCT.App.

  • date_range30 Apr. 2021

    Temporary offer: Everyone who newly subscribes for an annual license of the online version of either EPC.App or PCT.App in the period lasting from 30 April 2021 until 31 May 2021 will receive the first print of a customized color paperback via our integrated print-on-demand service free of charge (normally EUR 40). The paperback itself can be ordered at any time during the one-year license period, i.e. also after end of May.

    Details of the service can be found here and the process is further illustrated in this video.

    The complementary paperback offer also applies if you upgrade from a test account or monthly subscription to an annual subscription as described here. It does not apply for an existing annual subscription, or to the second App for which you already get a 50% discount on the annual license fee.

  • date_range2 Apr. 2021

    EPC.App is now updated to legal status of 1st April 2021 – as always in English and German with same content. The new edition reflects the new EPO March 2021 Guidelines, the Official Journal until March 2021, amendments to Rules 19, 117, and 118 EPC, new Article 15a of the Rules of procedure of the Boards of Appeal, and the case law of the Boards of Appeal published until March 2021 (including G 1/19 and the referral of G 1/21).

    In addition to the legal update, we continued the review process of existing comments involving our new author Grzegorz Wesela-Bauman, and added further details in various article sections of the book as listed here. Also considered is the various feedback received from our EQE users. Special thanks to all who contributed!

    In the web-browser online version, all changes are automatically available on the next login and are indicated by blue update notes, as explained in the FAQs. Additionally, there is a 2-minute video illustrating the update process and related functions.

    In the offline PDF or the colored paperback available for annual licenses via our print-on-demand service, the additional content does not increase the number of pages since it has mostly been added on empty parts of existing pages.

  • date_range29 Jan. 2021

    We are happy to announce that Grzegorz Wesela-Bauman, PhD Eng. joined our team of authors for the EPC.App:

    Grzegorz continued his informal review process after the November 2020 edition and will now bring in his ideas as new author. Together, we are working on the upcoming April 2021 edition, which will again add more details to the book and update its legal provisions, including the new guidelines coming in March and the feedback we receive from our EQE users.

  • date_range1 Jan. 2021

    Happy new year! We start 2021 with a new milestone in the development of book concepts: EPC.App and PCT.App now offer a print-on-demand service in the online platform, which allows to order a customized color paperback including your personal annotations. This service is only available for customers with a paid annual license.

    More details concerning the printed product, pricing and the ordering process are described in our FAQs.

  • date_range17 Nov. 2020

    We added two new marking categories "U1/U2" in the editing toolbar as shown here. In contrast to the other marking categories which are also applied by authors, the new ones are reserved for users only. Their style can be changed under the menu item “Settings” in the top bar and this will consistently affect all markings of the changed type throughout the book (online and in the PDF). We also changed the text color of user annotations in the generated PDF to dark red. We hope that the higher contrast of the new color will be seen as favorable for printing.

  • date_range2 Nov. 2020

    EPC.App is now updated to legal status of 1st November 2020. With this, both our EPC and PCT commentaries are updated to the next EQE cutoff date.

    In addition to the legal update, we revised many sections of the book to improve their useability. As part thereof, further content has been included such as abstracts of about 40 additional BoA decisions, the full arrangements for deposit accounts, more references to PCT provisions and additional summaries. Special thanks go to Grzegorz Wesela-Bauman for his numerous useful proposals on improving the book.

    In the web-browser online version, all changes are automatically available on the next login and are indicated by blue update notes, as explained in the FAQs. We further added a 2-minute video illustrating the update process and related functions.

    We published also the EPC.App November 2020 Edition as stand-alone paperback version on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk or in your local marketplace).

  • date_range13 Sep. 2020

    The PCT.App is now updated to legal status of 1st July 2020. Major changes are indicated by blue update notes in the App as explained in the FAQs; a further list of detailed changes can be found here.

    In addition to the legal update, the author Pete Pollard has largely revised the book compared to the previous edition, by condensing the content and improving readability while still retaining the characteristic topic-based structure.

    We published also the PCT.App September 2020 Edition as stand-alone paperback version on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk or in your local marketplace). The second version on thin 50g paper for convenient transport is available via boekenbestellen.nl.

    A German version of PCT.App is now also available.

  • date_range17 Apr. 2020

    The EPC.App April 2020 Edition is now available as stand-alone paperback version on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk or in your local marketplace). All those who start with this classical book and afterwards decide to continue with the electronic version qualify for a discount of 50% on the first annual license of the EPC.App.

    The online PDF-generator has been enhanced both for EPC.App and PCT.App, and now provides all cross-references as links in the PDF. The index of EPC.App and PCT.App has been extended to include additional content elements, and font embedding in the PDF is improved for enhanced compatibility with older printers.

  • date_range11 Mar. 2020

    The recently enlarged EPC.App database may be used to build your own annotated case law database. This 2-minute video in our youtube channel demonstrates available functions.

    If you moreover feel there might be still room to optimize your PCT knowledge, the stand-alone PCT.App paperback is now also available in a thinner version (2.3 cm thick) on 50g bible paper for more convenient transport via boekenbestellen.nl. The content is the same as in the Amazon version (4.1 cm thick) which is on strong 90g paper for heavy usage.

  • date_range21 Feb. 2020

    The integrated case-law database has been enlarged to now include all ever issued decisions of the EPO Boards of Appeal (more than 35,000 until February 2020). See our FAQs for further details on how to cite or add these contents to build your own annotated case-law database .

    Moreover, the license management has been adapted to allow online license upgrades. Further information can be found here.

  • date_range6 Dec. 2019

    If you ordered the PCT.App paperback on Amazon on or before 5th December 2019, you may have received a version with an incorrect index of articles and rules. A corrected version of the index is meanwhile included and can further be downloaded here.

    If you are affected and unhappy with sticking the correction into the book, please contact us via support@ipappify.de and we will send you a replacement.

  • date_range3 Dec. 2019

    For all those who prefer to start with classical books, we now also published the EPC.App and PCT.App November 2019 Editions as stand-alone paperback versions - both updated to legal status relevant for EQE 2020 - on Amazon (available marketplaces are listed here for EPC.App and here for PCT.App).

    The new editions come in a convenient smaller format (24x17cm, EPC.App 2.5 cm thick / PCT.App 4.1 cm) with a black-and-white layout.

  • date_range28 Nov. 2019

    Now also the PCT.App November 2019 update is finished. We used this occasion to review and fine-tune the book, taking also early user feedback into account.

    As usual, amendments are further indicated by blue update notes in the App as explained in the FAQs.

  • date_range8 Nov. 2019

    The EPC.App is now updated to legal status of 1st November 2019 and thereby brought in line with the law in force as relevant for EQE 2020.

    This update includes the Official Journal and Supplementary publications until October 2019, amendments to the implementing regulations (Rule 126 EPC), recent BoA case law until October 2019, the 9th edition of the "Case Law of the Boards of Appeal" (July 2019), and the EPO Guidelines for Examination (November 2019 edition), all in accordance with our update policy.

  • date_range30 Sep. 2019

    It's done! We are proud to announce the release of the second electronic book PCT.App – The self-editable commented Patent Cooperation Treaty, edited by T. Andlauer, S. Ahlers, T. Eißfeller and P. Pollard.

    For further details please refer to the PCT.App page.

  • date_range2 Sep. 2019

    On Saturday, 31.08.2019 and Sunday, 01.09.2019, there was an issue with an expired SSL certificate for my.epcapp.net und www.epcapp.net due to a general configuration issue affecting web sites hosted on Microsoft Azure.

    In situations like these, you can obtain early additional information in our facebook user forum.

  • date_range24 Jun. 2019

    We are happy and proud to announce that Pete Pollard has joined our team as further author for the next book using the EPC.App platform: PCT.App – The self-editable commented Patent Cooperation Treaty (more details here).

  • date_range17 Apr. 2019

    For all those who prefer to start with a classical book, a printed version of EPC.App (April 2019 Edition) with all authors' annotations can also be ordered as paperback on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk or in your local marketplace). This version has US-letter format (2.6cm thick), our default color layout, and an additonal edge index for different parts of the EPC, which is visible on the closed book's edge.

  • date_range15 Apr. 2019

    We now updated the content of the EPC.App to legal status of 1st April 2019 and also included all valuable feedback from our EQE users. For more detailed information, please refer to the FAQ.

    In the App, all changes are explained by blue update notes and you can conveniently jump through the electronic book from one change to the other using the notes assistant.

    The update notes can also be exported to the PDF to track amended pages and minimize printing effort for replacements.

  • date_range7 Jan. 2019

    EPC.App provides new options of adapting the book layout to your personal preferences.

    After login, under "Settings", the marking styles (e.g. underline, highlight, bold, ...) can now be changed per marking category, and then consistently affect all markings of the changed type throughout the book, both in the Web browser view and in the generated PDF.

  • date_range19 Nov. 2018

    New PDF generation options for optimizing the PDF either for printout as a loose-leaf collection or for electronic reading / creating a bound printed book. Depending on the setting, the total number of pages in the PDF can be reduced by more than 250 without removing any real content of the book.

  • date_range1 Nov. 2018

    Completion of pre-release test phase and official start of usage for everybody with updated legal status (1st November 2018, usable for EQE 2019). As of now, users can purchase permanent licenses after signing in to the EPC.App user area.