How to get the “+Request PCT Link” button

I posted a few days ago (blog article) that the EPO had set up a way for users of ISA/EP and IPEA/EP to receive correspondence (such as International Search Reports and Written Opinions) instantly and electronically, which might for some users be preferable to having to wait a long time for such correspondence to show up in slow postal mail.  In that posting I described my own lack of success in setting up such things, particularly because an important button called “+Request PCT Link” was missing in the EPO system.  I have heard back from the EPO people about this.  It turns out you have to ask for this button.  In today’s blog article I offer more information about this new system, that I have heard from the EPO people. 

Yes, so if you want to use this new EPO system, you have to ask for the “+Request PCT Link” button.  To get it, drop an email to any one of the EPO people listed in this document.

The EPO people have responded to some questions that I had sent to them.

What is there to prevent a fake administrator from taking over some other PCT applicant’s EPO communications?  One thing that I worried about is, if a bad person follows all of the steps detailed in my previous blog article about this, what would there be to stop the bad person from using the “+Request PCT Link” button to take over somebody else’s communications from the ISA/EP and IPEA/EP?  It would be easy enough for the bad person to click around in Patentscope and learn what email address is used by some US patent firm or US corporation in their PCT Requests.  And the bad person could (if they wish) enter such an email address into the “+Request PCT Link” button pop-up-window.

I am delighted to be able to report to you that the EPO thought about this and set up an automated process to try to keep this from happening.  Whenever anybody clicks on the “+Request PCT Link” button and enters an email address, the EPO folks tell me that their system automatically sends an email message to that email address, asking if the PCT Link request is legitimate.

Here is how it works.  First, the assumption here is that you have dropped a note to one of the EPO people as mentioned above, asking them to please give you this elusive “+Request PCT Link” button.  And the assumption is that they did manually add this button for you.  So then you click on that button and you get a pop-up window as shown at right.  You then enter an email address.

Now in my previous blog article I said that this email address never gets used by the EPO as an actual email address.  I said that it is simply a “thing that matches”.  The email address appears in the PCT Request for one or more of your pending PCT applications, and the email address gets added to this “PCT Link” area of the MyEPO Portfolio system.  But I said EPO never actually gets used by the EPO as an actual email address.

Nope!  EPO does use it as an email address.  EPO’s system sends an email message to that email address.  You can see such an email at right.  The blue button is a link that goes into the MyEPO Portfolio system, and the link contains an “activation token” that proves that the person doing the clicking really did receive that email message.   So assuming the “+Request PCT Link” request was legitimate, then the recipient of the email message will click on the blue button.  Then they will log in at MyEPO Portfolio using their smart card.  (Or they forward the email to somebody who has a MyEPO Portfolio account and they click on the link and proceed with the process.

Now of course we see what happens in the MyEPO Portfolio system.  A pop-up window invites the  MyEPO Portfolio user to agree to this PCT link.  Let’s assume the user clicks “Agree”.

What happens next is that this email address will get added to the list of “recipient” email addresses in this MyEPO Portfolio account, as you can see at right.

One thing to realize is that you as a MyEPO Portfolio user are not limited to just one PCT-Linked email address.  You could add as many email addresses as you like to this list of PCT-Linked email addresses.  In my case I have added a second PCT-Linked email address, as you can see at right.

Another thing to appreciate about this EPO system is that they don’t check to see whether this email address that you have set up as PCT-Linked is actually connected with any actual PCT application.  For example, neither of the email addresses that you see in this screen shot has ever been entered into a PCT Request.  But if tomorrow or next week I file some new PCT application, listing one of those email addresses in the PCT Request, then the ISA/EP communications in that application will come to me electronically.  Or if tomorrow or next week I do a 92bis change to connect one of those email addresses with some existing PCT application then the ISA/EP communications in that application will come to me electronically.

Which then brings us to another family of questions.  What happens when the PCT user updates the email address that is connected to a particular PCT application?  Here is a scenario that illustrates what happens.

• Suppose there are ten PCT applications that have some email address aaa@bbb.com listed in their PCT Request forms.   Suppose further that you only know about one of the PCT applications.  (For example suppose the other nine PCT applications that list aaa@bbb.com were filed by some distant colleague in your firm or corporation.)
• Now suppose you log in at your MyEPO Portfolio and you do what it takes to add aaa@bbb.com as a linked email address in your MyEPO Portfolio account.  (You did this based upon the one PCT application that you know about that has aaa@bbb.com listed in its PCT Request.)
• The consequence will be that for all ten PCT applications (not merely for the one that you know about), the ISA/EP and IPEA/EP communications will get turned off from paper mailing and will instead get sent to your mailbox in MyEPO Portfolio.
• Now let’s suppose that you do a 92bis change to update the email address for  the one PCT application that you know about.  The new email address that you have set up for your PCT application is now (say) ccc@ddd.com.
• One consequence will be that for the other nine PCT applications (the ones that you don’t know about), the ISA/EP and IPEA/EP communications will continue to get sent to your mailbox in MyEPO Portfolio.
• Another consequence is that for your PCT application (the one where you changed the email to ccc@ddd.com), that application will now revert to paper mail communications.  (I say this with the assumption that neither you nor anybody else had ever added ccc@ddd.com to their PCT Link list in their MyEPO Portfolio account.)
• Of course what might have happened is that long ago, somebody that you don’t know about had already added ccc@ddd.com to their MyEPO Portfolio account.  If so, then the consequence of your doing the 92bis change would be that now the ISA/EP and IPEA/EP communications for that application will get sent to that other person, electronically.