Although it takes a couple of days for money to be transferred from your deposit account to the EPO, the legal date of payment is deemed to be the date printed on the confirmation of receipt of your online debit order generated by the Online Fee Payment system.
In the automatic debiting procedure fees are deemed to have been paid on the last day of the time limit for payment of those fees, with the exception of renewal fees, which are booked on the last day of the relevant calendar month.
Note: This is of course subject to there being sufficient money in your account.
In step 2 of the payment procedure, select the fee that you wish to pay, regardless of the amount shown. In step 3 you can then edit the fee amount before confirming your payment.
Pending orders are payments which have been made using either the Online Fee Payment service or the Online Filing software, but which have not yet been processed by the EPO. They do not include payments made by fax, bank transfer or post, or debit orders issued under the EPO's automatic debiting procedure.
The latter do not appear on the account statement until the EPO's Treasury and Accounts department has booked the relevant payment.
No, it is not possible to cancel a debit order online, unless it is an automatic debit order. Automatic debit orders can be cancelled online via the "Fee Payment Plan" screen.
If you need to cancel an ordinary debit order sent using Online Fee Payment you should immediately fax or e-mail the EPO's Treasury and Accounts department indicating the application number and amount concerned and asking them not to process the debit order.
Note: Payments may only be cancelled up to midnight on the day on which they were made.
Fax: +49 (0)89 2399-2528
e-mail: finance@epo.org
Yes, it is.