Patent registration in Estonia. Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in northern Europe. Estonia is a developed country, with a high-income advanced economy; ranking very high in the Human Development Index. The sovereign state of Estonia is a democratic unitary parliamentary republic, it is administratively subdivided into 15 maakond (counties). Estonia has consistently ranked highly in international rankings for quality of life, education, digitalization of public services, and the prevalence of technology companies. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of patent registration in Estonia.
Necessary documents for patent registration in Estonia
The necessary documents for patent registration in Estonia include:
- The request to grant a patent (patent application);
- Detailed information on the applicant(s) including the applicant’s and inventor’s names, addresses, citizenships, etc.;
- A description of the invention;
- A signed and stamped power of attorney by the applicant(s);
- A copy of the amendments (if any);
- Priority documents (if any).
- Other required documents.
For applicants wanting to claim the priority date, the deadline for filing the patent application in Estonia claiming conventional priority is 12 months from the priority date. If the 12-month term is expired, it may be restored within 2 months after the deadline provided that the applicant can provide cause for such failure to submit the required documents in due time.
The official language of Estonian patent applications is Estonian. If the patent application is filed in any other foreign language, the Estonian translation is to be filed within 2 months from the filing date.
Novelty grace period in Estonia
To be patentable in Estonia, the application must satisfy the novelty requirement, along with other requirements for an invention to be patent-registered.
However, if the invention is disclosed publicly before the filing date, the application may still be considered valid if it is filed within a specific set of time.
The official novelty grace period in Estonia is 12 months after the disclosure of the information relating to the invention in public.
The disclosure might be because of a party who has the right to apply for the patent or the disclosure was made in bad faith by any third party.
The evidence substantiating the display of the invention must be filed alongside an application.
If the evidence is valid and the patent application is filed within the time limit, it will still be considered valid in Estonia and may proceed to the examination phases.
The procedure of patent registration in Estonia
To obtain a patent in Estonia, the applicant needs to file their patent application to the Estonia IP Office.
After receiving the application, the examiners at the IP Office will conduct a formal and substantive examination to check if the application complies with the regulations of the law and is patentable.
The substantive examination is carried out automatically upon publication of the application.
If there are no errors, the patent is granted to the applicant.
Validity and maintenance fee
Once granted, the patent in Estonia will have a validity period of 20 years from the filing date.
To maintain the validity period, the patentee needs to pay the annual fees starting from the first year following the filing date.
The official fees for the 1st and 2nd years of validity should be paid simultaneously with payment of annuities for the 3rd year.
It should be noted that the annuities can not be paid in advance. Specifically, the patentee can’t pay the annuities earlier than six months prior to the due date.
If the patentee misses the deadline of payment, annuities may be paid within a six-month grace period on the condition of payment of a surcharge.
You can see a list of Estonia IP firms here.