Domestic and international patent protection - Intellectual Property Institute of Serbia became full-right member of European Patent Organization

The Intellectual Property Institute of Serbia became a full-right member of the European Patent Organization on October 1st. The draft of the new Strategy for development of intellectual property and draft amendments and supplements to the Law on Patents are expected to be finished by the end of the year. In that way, our country has joined the family of European countries members of this organization, including all the countries of the European Union, as well as Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland and Turkey.

Based on the admission to the EPOrg, Serbia also acquires a full-right membership in the committees and working bodies of this organization, which means that it takes active part in the development of the patent system in Europe.

The admission to the EPOrg brings certain innovations concerning the submission of international patent applications. The procedure for the submission of applications for protection of inventions in the countries members of the EPOrg is made significantly easier. When a domestic applicant wants to protect inventions in several countries members of the EPOrg, he or she only needs to submit a single application to the Intellectual Property Institute of the Republic of Serbia or to the European Patent Organization, based on which the European Patent Institute conducts a unique procedure to acknowledge the patent.

In other words, the applicant does not have to start the procedure for examination of the application in each individual country, but only submits a single application. In that way, the inventors are offered a possibility to protect their inventions in the countries members of the EPOrg in a cheaper and simpler way. The applicants with the residence in one of the countries members of the EPOrg will be able to act in the procedures before the European Patent Institute by themselves on their own behalf, and not exclusively through a representative, as it has been the case so far.