On 1 November 2015 an agreement between the European Patent Office (EPO) and the State Agency on Intellectual Property of the Republic of Moldova allowing European patents to take legal effect in Moldova will enter in to force.
Thereby, applicants with a European patent application will after this date be able to validate their granted patent in Moldova – and thus obtain patent protection in Moldova in a significantly cheaper way than hitherto.
Until, and by all likelihood also after, 1 November 2015 patent protection in Moldova may be obtained by filing national patent applications and/or PCT national phase applications.
In any event, for applicants interested in obtaining protection in Moldova the new validation procedure should prove significantly cheaper and more streamlined than applying for a direct national patent in Moldova.
The detailed requirements as to documents and translations required are not yet published, but the Awapatent IP Blog will monitor the development with interest to keep our readers updated.
With the addition of Moldova, it is now possible to obtain patent protection based on a European patent in 42 different countries, which in addition to the 38 member states also include the two extension states of Bosina & Hercegovina and Montenegro as well as Morocco by means of the validation agreement between EPO and the Moroccan IPO.
Troels Peter Rørdam, European Patent Attorney & Certified Danish Patent Agent
(Read the EPO press release)