In Eurasia, namely in the territory of 8 participating countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, the Eurasian patent system and the single patent space operate. That is, applicants can apply to the Eurasian Patent Office and get a unified Eurasian patent that will be valid in all participating countries. The operation of all this is ensured by the Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO).
In 2022, EAPO was headed by a new chairman. A new chairman always means innovation and new policy: in this case, the policy of expanding the decision-making control center. Therefore, in 2023, EAPO adopted a “five-year” development plan for 2023-2028.
Below, we share with you the main innovations that are worth waiting for in the Eurasian patent space.
In the next 5 years, EAPO plans to:
1) Create a separate body that will deal with the resolution of Eurasian patent disputes.
What this means for you:
From 1994 until today, objections against the Eurasian patent grant are submitted to the Eurasian Patent Organization only within 6 months from the date of publication of the patent grant decision. After this period, objections can also be submitted, but to the national patent institutions, for example, separately to the institution of Azerbaijan, separately to the institution of Kazakhstan, etc.
In the next 5 years, the Eurasian Patent Organization plans to create a centralized appeals chamber that would review decisions on Eurasian patent grants during the entire period of their validity, that is, during all 20 years. In addition to this, a single court jurisdiction is to be created in the Eurasian patent space. Currently, to invalidate a Eurasian patent, it is necessary to bring a case to 8 courts (in each country separately), and with a centralized appeals chamber and a single court jurisdiction only one file with the court is needed.
In essence, one Russian court will make decisions for all participating countries.
2) Launch the Eurasian utility model patents and a unified Eurasian trademark.
What this means for you:
Currently, only inventions and industrial designs can be protected in the Eurasian patent space.
The Eurasian utility model will have all the same advantages as the usual one compared to the invention:
a shorter period of the patent grant, i.e. 6-8 months;
lower costs for the patent registration;
a legal monopoly on the production and sale of your creation for 10 years; and
greater financial benefits in those areas where product lines are quickly updated and a patent for an invention is simply useless.
As for the unified Eurasian trademark, its launch will allow centralizing the registration, and transfer all costs to the Russian Federation with centralized Russian management of the unified registry of the trademarks (something similar to the European system).
3) Reduce the examination duration.
What this means for you:
Currently, examination of Eurasian applications takes about 19 months. That is, if you do not delay the process and respond to examination requests in a timely manner, a Eurasian patent can be granted in 1.5-2 years. If the responds are late, then you can wait for a patent for up to 5 years. In this regard, the responsibility rests more on the applicant, however, for its part, EAPO plans to carry out the examination of the applications even faster.
In addition, within the framework of this initiative, EAPO plans to launch accelerated patent prosecution. The details are still unknown, but it is likely that EAPO will give you the opportunity to choose standard or accelerated application processing.
4) Include Uzbekistan and Mongolia to the participating countries.
What this means for you:
The details are also still unknown, but if successful, the unified patent will be valid on the territory of 10 Eurasian countries, instead of 8, as now.
Uzbekistan has been resisting the Eurasian system. We once had a meeting with the former head of the Patent Office of Uzbekistan, who was proud that he did not allow Russia to absorb the Uzbek patent space.
However, their cooperation is currently under consideration, and the Russian Federation also has its eyes for Mongolia.
5) Recruit and train new experts on a large scale.
What this means for you:
If more experts work for EAPO, a larger number of the applications can be examined in a shorter time.
Great hope for great work.
6) Extend the “retirement age”, i.e. experts will be able to work in EAPO even after the age of 65.
In addition to plans for the future, in the last couple of years, EAPO has introduced several important changes that you can already benefit from.
From 2022, EAPO began to officially act as an international search body and an international preliminary examination body within the framework of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). That is, when submitting an international PCT application, you can choose the Eurasian Patent Office as the search authority.
What this means for you:
The process of the international application prosecution includes a mandatory stage, i.e. payable international patent search. There is no way to skip this payable stage. From now on, if you submit an international application, you can order a mandatory international search at the Eurasian Patent Office, and not, for example, at the European Patent Office.
The fees for the search conducted by the Eurasian Patent Office for an application in Russian are currently much lower, i.e. 9,000 Rubles. For comparison, fees for an international patent search conducted by the European Patent Office currently amount to 1,775 euros.
In 2022, a Eurasian industrial design was launched. Currently, the unified Eurasian industrial design can be registered not for all EAPO member countries, but for five, such as Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The remaining countries, such as Belarus, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, are still making preparations.
The term of validity of the Eurasian industrial design patent is 5 years from the date of submission of the Eurasian application. It can be extended several times for five years up to a total of 25 years.
What this means for you:
To get the Eurasian industrial design, it is sufficient to submit one Eurasian application instead of submitting separate applications to each participating country. In this case, you will get a patent for an industrial design sooner for less cost, since there is no longer a need to file in each individual country and pay fees in each individual country.
Technically, it is also possible to submit a single application for an industrial design through the Hague system of international registration, but the Eurasian system offers lower fees, in another words, the Russian Federation is actually dumping prices. Anyway, it can be interesting only if you are interested in the Eurasian region.
In 2021, the Pharmaceutical Register of the Eurasian Agency was launched. Open access contains information on active Eurasian patents for inventions related to pharmacologically active substances that have been assigned international non-proprietary names (INNs). As of January 1, 2023, the pharmaceutical register contained information on 308 patents and 211 MPNs and their combinations. Recently, EAPO made a decision to expand the functionality of the pharmaceutical register by including information on national patents for inventions of the participating countries. In the future, EAPO plans to create a Eurasian pharmaceutical register, and its information can be considered by the authorized state and judicial bodies of the participating countries when registering medicinal products, issuing permits for their introduction into civilian circulation, and considering disputes about infringement of the rights of relevant patents.
What this means for you:
In fact, EAPO has created another database where you can find Eurasian or national patents for the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) you are interested in. Find the name of the API and read the list of relevant patents.
These are the active changes proposed by the Russian Federation. In essence, they are the copies of the established European systems, and the recognition of Moscow as a professional patent center for conducting international searches and examination by the international PCT system.
While monitoring the implementation of the five-year plan, we kindly invite you to submit applications for inventions and industrial designs with Intectica. In each case, we will select for you the best way of patent protection using various international systems.
Work with professionals.
Founder of Research & Patent group Intectica, author of patent algorithms for solving problems in the pharmaceutical industry, patent attorney certified in all intellectual property objects (Patents, Design, TM), with education in chemistry and law, chief expert of the patent institution of Ukraine UKRPATENT (1997-2004). Member of international organizations, including ECTA, PTMG, UAM, lecturer and blogger.
