November 2008
On 1 January 2009, the European Patent Organisation will welcome its newest member.
As from this date, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will become the 35th EPO member state, meaning that any European patent application filed on or after 1 January 2009 may designate this country.
The list of EPO member states, which includes all 27 member states of the European Union, thus will soon read as follows:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey and the United Kingdom
with a full list of the PCT member states being available from the links page of this site.
Together with the three remaining ‘Extension States’ (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia), this means that a European patent will shortly be able to provide protection in a total of 38 countries – a market of about 570 million people.