Patent registration in Thailand. Thailand, known formerly as Siam and officially as the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia. Thailand is an emerging economy and is considered a newly industrialized country. Thailand had a 2017 GDP of US$1.236 trillion (on a purchasing power parity basis). Thailand is the 2nd largest economy in Southeast Asia after Indonesia. Thailand ranks midway in the wealth spread in Southeast Asia as it is the 4th richest nation according to GDP per capita, after Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to Thailand is to learn the procedure of patent registration in Thailand.
Necessary documents for patent registration in Thailand
Necessary documents for patent registration in Thailand include:
- Name, full address, and nationality of the Applicant and Inventor;
- Patent Description (English and Thai translation are required);
- Notarized copy of priority document (if any);
- Patent assignment contract (notarized) if the applicant is not the author;
- Patent assignment contract (notarized) if the applicant in the international application is different from the applicant in the patent application filed in Thailand;
- A copy of the search report/notification of the respective patent examination results in other countries (if any).
The procedure of patent registration in Thailand
Patent filing is required for a patent applicant to obtain a patent within 12 months of the priority date.
A formal examination of the innovation of the application is carried out to check compliance with legal requirements. The applicant may also be required to submit additional documents within 90 days
Any parties who feel that their rights are violated may file an objection to the application within 90 days of the date the publication is made. Substantive examination requests must be submitted within 5 years of publication.
If there are no objections to the application and the examiner finds no errors in the patents or design patents, along with the full payment of the registration fee by the applicant, the Thai Patent Office will grant a patent in Thailand.
For inventions, the validity period of the patent is 20 years from the filing date, provided that the patent owner pays an annual maintenance fee or a one-time payment for 20 years.
Notes on patent registration in Thailand
The patent application language is Thai.
Thailand is a party to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (“PCT”) and the deadline for filing a PCT national stage application in Thailand is 30 months from the date of first filing abroad (priority date).
Thailand is also a party to the Paris Convention. To have priority, a patent application must be filed in Thailand within 12 months from the date of first filing abroad (priority date).
You can find a list of Thailand IP firms here.