The Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO) is an intergovernmental organization established in 1995 in accordance with the Eurasian Patent Convention (EAPC).
EAPO set the rules and is responsible for the expertise and granting of Eurasian patents.
Since June 2021, the EAPO accepts applications for the grant of Eurasian patents for industrial designs also.
The headquarters of the Eurasian Patent Office is located in Moscow, Russia.
The EAPO Member states are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
Till 2012 Moldova was also a participant in EAPO.
In 2022, the Eurasian Patent Office begins to act as an international search authority and an international preliminary examination authority in accordance with the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
Patent procedure
The Eurasian patent system provides a uniform application procedure for physical and legal persons to protect their inventions on the basis of a single Eurasian patent valid in the territory of eight member states.
Eurasian patents are granted for inventions created in all fields of science, technology, and the economy.
EAPO provides the possibility of entering into the national (regional) phase under the PCT procedure.
The deadline for entering PCT national phase in EAPO is 31 months.
The patent procedure contains several stages, namely:
1. Filing a Eurasian application
To obtain a Eurasian patent with validity in all the Organization’s member states only one Eurasian application is filed.
The patent materials should be submitted in Russian.
The Eurasian application can be filed in any language with further submission of translation into Russian within 4 months.
The Office accepts digital three-dimensional models (3D models) in patent materials as well.
2. Substantive examination
EAPO conducts a worldwide patent search and runs a substantive examination of an application.
If an expert has questions or requires additional documents, a request or notification would be sent, for which it is necessary to prepare an answer and send it back.
There are no limits on the number of such additional requests.
Before the decision to grant a patent, it is possible to convert a Eurasian application to a national one in an EAPO country.
3. Granting a patent
According to the results of a patent search and consideration of documents within the framework of the substantive examination, a decision is made to grant a patent or refuse.
The term for consideration of applications before granting takes on average takes 12 months if no additional requests were sent.
EAPO has bilateral agreements with the national patent office and provides the Patent Prosecution Highway Programme (PPH Programme) for applications from these countries, in particular, from China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.
The term of the Eurasian Patent is 20 years from the filing date of the Eurasian application with a possible extension of up to 25 years in all EAPO countries except Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
The cost of Eurasian patent
The official fees should be paid for filing, substantive examination, and registration.
For additional actions, like amendments in claims, changing applicant data, etc., additional fees should be paid.
The official fees are set in Russian rubles.
Annual fees
Eurasian patents should not be validated separately in member-states.
After a patent is granted, it becomes valid in all EAPO countries by default.
But, to maintain patent rights in these countries, a patent owner should pay relevant annual fees for each. So, with payment of annual fees, a patent owner may decide, to cover with Eurasian patent all eight countries, or even just one of them.
The annual fees are paid simultaneously for all countries to Eurasian Patent Office.
The annual duties are paid annually.
If you have any additional questions as to Eurasian patents, please contact us info@craneip.com