EUROPEAN PATENT

ON THE EUROPEAN PATENT :


The European Patent Agreement is an international treaty agreed after the diplomatic conference held in Munich on October 5, 1973.

With this agreement the European Patent Organisation was established, which constitutes the result of the collective political will of European countries in order to set out a uniform patent system in Europe.

The European Patent Agreement creates a centralized system for granting patents open to all the European countries, with the management of the European Patent Office.

The application for a European patent is managed by the European Patent Office, and its granting has the same effect as a national patent for each State for which it is granted.

Among its goals, the European Patent Agreement intends to make the protection of inventions easier, and according to the number of states designated, less expensive thant the protection which can be obtained through the different national procedures.

The system of the European patent permits to obtain protection by applying for a direct European patent designing those European states on which protection is to be obtained, and wwhich have signed the European Patent Agreement (28 countries by July 1, 2004).

The application for a European patent is managed by the European Patent Office, and its granting has the same effect of a national patent for each of the countries for which it is granted.

MEMBER STATES OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT AGREEMENT :

1.- Austria	8.- Denmark	15.- Hungary	22.- Poland
2.- Belgium	9.- Estonia	16.- Ireland	23.- Portugal
3.- Bulgaria	10.- Spain	17.- Italy	24.- Rumania
4.- Switzerland	11.- Finland	18.- Liechtenstein	25.- Sweden
5.- Cyprus	12.- France	19.- Luxembourg	26.- Slovenia
6.- Czech Republic	13.- United Kingdom	20.- Monaco	27.- Slovakia
7.- Germany	14.- Greece	21.- The Netherlands	28.- Turkey

REQUISITES EUROPEAN PATENT

The requisites for a European patent to be granted are as follows:

• Novelty: an invention is considered to be new when it is not included in the state of technique.
• Inventing activity: and invention is considered to involve inventing activity when it is not a consequence of the state of technique in an evident manner for an expert.
• Industrial application: an invention is considered to be liable to industrial application when its object can be manufactured in any kind of industry, including agricultural.

DURATION : The APPLICATION of a European will imply the payment of annuity fees which will have tobe paid to the European Patent Office as from the third annuity until the patent is granted.