Protection Abroad
If you wish to protect your invention abroad, we may advise you to file an international patent application. If you plan to protect your patent only in Europe, it is advisable to file a European patent application.
An international patent application offers you a uniform application procedure for more than 140 countries. Your decision on the countries in which you wish to pursue your patent application has to be taken after 2 ½ years after the application date. The main costs of the international application do also occur only when entering the regional or national phases of the patent application. This allows you to have enough time in order to choose all those countries that are economically relevant for your invention. In other words: you purchase time when filing an international patent application.
A European patent application can protect your patent in more than 30 countries. After the grant of the patent, you can pursue the patent in all those European countries that you have selected. In the future, it will be possible to obtain a so-called unitary patent, which allows you to protect your invention in all European Union member states. This new European patent offers a uniform protection and is an additional opportunity besides the national and European patents that do already exist.
The unitary patent will be a patent granted by the European Patent Office and will be applicable in all the 28 countries that take part in this new procedure. The regulations concerning the unitary patent entered into force on 20th January 2013. They will enter into force on 1st January 2014 or on the date of entry into force of the Agreement on a unified European and EU patent court, whichever date is later.
Together with you, we will elaborate and implement an appropriate strategy for the application, grant and assertion of your industrial property rights in Germany and abroad. In order to be able to file, enforce and maintain patents or utility models in single countries, we work together with experienced attorneys worldwide.
