July 2009
On 1 July 2009 San Marino became the 36th member state of the European Patent Organisation. This means that as of 1 July 2009 it is possible to file for patent protection in San Marino through a European patent.
A European patent can now provide protection in a total of 39 countries – a market of about 570 million people. The European Patent Organisation is therefore the largest trans-national patent organisation in the world. The list of EPO member states, which includes all 27 member states of the European Union, is now:
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, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey and the United Kingdom. A European patent can also be extended to Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia.
For more information regarding European patents, please contact us. Contact details for all of our attorneys are available here.
A full list of Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) member states can be accessed from the links page of this site.