EUROPEAN PATENT

1- INTRODUCTION.

The European Patent is a system for the application and obtaining of protection for inventions in a plurality of countries, by means of a single application and procedure which ends up, once the patent is granted, in a plurality of national patents in each of the designated countries.

Once the European Patent has been granted, it must be validated and translated (as the case may be), in each of the designated countries. From that moment, the European Patent has full independence in every designated country and must be kept alive just as any national patent.

2- COUNTRIES WHICH MAY BE DESIGNATED.

The following countries can currently be designated in order to seek the protection of a European Patent, click on the map:

3- PROCESSING.

The processing of a European Patent comprises of the following steps:

		Application, in any of the three official languages of the European Patent Office (English, French or German).
		Search Report on the state of the art.
		Publication of the application (18 months after the priority date ).
		Optional request for provisional protection in the designated countries (upon translation of the claims and filing at the Patent Offices of each designated country).
		Request, upon payment of the corresponding fee, of the substantive examination of the European Patent and designation of countries (term: 3 months from the publication of the application).
		Substantive examination on novelty and inventive step of the European Patent application.
		Grant.
		Translation of the claims to the other official languages of the European Patent Office not used for its processing, and payment of issue fees.
		Publication of the grant of the European Patent.
		Translation of the European Patent into the official languages of the designated countries and its filing before each of their national patent offices (term: three months from the mention of grant in the European Patent Office Official Journal).
		Eventual opposition proceedings lodged by third parties.
		Payment of annual fees in each designated country.

4- TERM OF PROTECTION.

The term of protection of a European Patent is 20 years from the filing date of the application.