Colour Drawings at the EPO: What You Need to Know

As of 1 October 2025, the European Patent Office (EPO) will accept, and publish, filings of both greyscale and colour drawings for all European patent applications, and subsequent electronic filings.

The change comes into effect following the Decision from the President of the EPO of 7 July 2025. The decision is a welcome progression for patent filings before the EPO, and for some applications, colour drawings will be beneficial for demonstrating the technical details of an invention.

Previously, if colour drawings were filed at the EPO, the office would convert the drawings to black and white before publishing. From 1 October 2025, drawings filed electronically at the EPO in colour will be published in colour.

If considering filing drawings in colour, applicants should always consider the requirements of other patent offices they intend to file in. Although the EPO now accepts drawings in colour, this is not the case for all patent offices, such as the UKIPO (UK) and JPO (Japan). Other patent offices will only accept colour drawings if the invention cannot be disclosed without them, such as the USPTO (United States).

International applications (PCT) should be considered carefully. Under current practice, international applications should be filed in black and white. If relying on a European application with colour drawings as priority, the international application will be converted to black and white and technical information previously represented by the colour drawings may be lost.

As such, the international filing strategy should be considered, particularly if key technical details of the invention are reliant on colour drawings.