On 1 February 2026, the revision of the PACE programme (Programme for Accelerated Prosecution of European Patent Applications) of the European Patent Office (EPO) entered into force. This update, announced in the Notice from the Official Journal of December 2025 (OJ EPO 2025, A69), introduces a major structural change in the acceleration of the European patent grant procedure.
What is the revised PACE?
The PACE programme enables applicants to accelerate the prosecution of their applications by filing a formal request online using EPO Form 1005. With the 2026 reform, PACE is limited exclusively to the examination phase, with the possibility of requesting acceleration in the search phase no longer existing.
Under the new scheme, once acceleration is granted, the EPO commits to issuing the next notice of examination within approximately three months.
Main differences compared to the previous scheme
Prior to 2026, applicants could request acceleration during both the search phase and the examination phase. With the entry into force of the reform:
- The search PACE is discontinuing: the EPO no longer offers accelerated issuance of the search report, justifying this because the average time to issue a European search report is already around 5.5 months, thus making a separate acceleration mechanism unnecessary.
- PACE only during the examination: EPO Form 1005 now only includes the option to request acceleration in the examination phase.
- Requirement of electronic filing: paper PACE applications are no longer accepted.
- Only one PACE request per application under examination: as before, only one request per application may be filed.
It is also important to know that the EPO can remove an application from the PACE programme in several clearly established cases. Such cases include:
- Request for an extension of time limits by the applicant, which automatically interrupts the acceleration.
- Withdrawal of the PACE request, done so voluntarily by the applicant.
- Patent application has been withdrawn, refused or is deemed to be withdrawn during prosecution.
- Failure to pay renewal fees on time, which also suspends accelerated prosecution.
Advantages for applicants
For those who need a quicker grant, this reform concentrates the EPO’s resources during the most decisive stage in the procedure: the examination. Some of the benefits include:
- More reliable and shorter turnaround times, with communications typically within three months.
- More predictability: by discontinuing search PACE, uncertainty about the workload at the EPO is reduced and prosecution is streamlined as a whole.
- No associated fees: the PACE request remains free of charge.
- Better alignment with other acceleration mechanisms, such as the PPH, which remain fully in place.
