The European Patent Convention (EPC) enables a single
regional application to be filed covering the following countries in
Europe:
|
Austria (AT)
Belgium (BE)
Bulgaria (BG)
Switzerland (CH) and Liechtenstein (LI)
Cyprus (CY)
Czech
Republic (CZ)
Germany (DE)
Denmark (DK)
Estonia (EE)
Spain
(ES) |
Finland (FI)
France (FR)
United Kingdom (GB)
Greece (GR)
Hungary (HU)
Ireland (IE)
Italy
(IT)
Luxembourg (LU) |
Monaco (MC)
Netherlands (NL)
Portugal (PT)
Romania (RO)
Slovenia (SI)
Slovak Republic (SK)
Sweden (SE)
Turkey (TR) |
A European application can also be extended to:
|
Albania (AL)
Latvia (LV) Lithuania (LT)
Macedonia (MK) |
The application is treated as a single application
during the search, publication, examination and grant stages, and it is
not until after grant that the patent is divided up into patents in each
of the countries covered and that translations of the patent specification
into each of the required languages need to be made.
The main differences between the European and British
application procedures are: the European procedure is generally slower and
the official fees are considerably greater; the search report is usually
not issued until after the application has been published, and the search
report is then published separately; the examination fee is payable within
six months after the publication of the search report, together with
designation fees on a per country basis; annual maintenance fees are
payable starting two years after the application date; a grant fee is
payable; and the European patent as a whole is open to opposition by third
parties for a period of nine months after grant.
The main advantage of a European application compared
with national applications around Europe is that it is less expensive if
protection in more than a few countries is required. The main disadvantage
is that the applicant puts all of their eggs in one basket.
