Patent registration in Latvia. Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. Latvia is a developed country, with a high-income advanced economy; ranking very high in the Human Development Index. It performs favorably in measurements of civil liberties, press freedom, internet freedom, democratic governance, living standards, and peacefulness. 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 Latvia.
Patent in Latvia
A patent in Latvia is a document which verifies the rights of its owner to the object specified in the patent according to the State’s laws.
The registered innovation will be protected. The patent will protect the rights of the owner of the patent.
When owning a patent in Latvia, the patentee will have exclusive rights to use the subject invention for a fixed period of time and the rights to deny others the use of the invention.
To be patentable in Latvia, the patent must satisfy the new, inventive, and industrially applicable requirements.
On the other hand, the unpatentable subjects in Latvia include:
- Discoveries;
- Scientific theories and mathematical methods;
- Aesthetic creations, schemes;
- Intellectual activities;
- Business and game rules and methods, as well as computer programs and information dissemination methods.
In Latvia, the novelty grace period is 6 months. This means that if the invention is disclosed publicly within 6 months from the filing date because of a fraudulent action against the applicant, or a demonstration of the invention of the applicant has taken place in an official international exhibition, then the patent application will not be considered invalid.
Necessary documents for patent registration in Latvia
The necessary documents for patent registration in Latvia 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.
The patent application’s official language is Latvian. The applicant may file the application in another language but a translated document into Latvian must be provided within 3 months from the filing date.
The procedure for patent registration in Latvia
To obtain a patent in Latvia, the applicant needs to file the patent application to the IP Office of Latvia (The Latvian Patent Office).
After receiving the patent application, the examiners at the IP Office will conduct a formality examination to check if the patent application follows the regulations of the law.
Currently, there are no regulations on substantive examinations.
The formality examination will be performed and the IP Office will set a time period of 3 months during which the state fee for publication of the patent must be paid by the applicant.
The amount of the state fee depends on the applicant. For the normal inventor, the state fee is 40% of the usual fee. For the special inventor, student or pensioner, the state fee is 20% of the usual fee.
If there are problems in the patent application, the IP Office of Latvia will announce it to the applicants. The applicants will then need to make amendments and they can also take complementaries, and amendments until the date when the Notice of Allowance is published by the Latvian Patent Office.
Patent validity
A patent in Latvia has a 20 years validity period.
The patent will be enforced from the date of the granting of the patent.
However, to be able to obtain the patent, the applicant needs to pay the official fees for publication and grant within 3 months from the date of issuance of the decision to grant a patent.
Annuities should be paid for each year following the year of grant of a patent. The due date is the last day of the month that haves the anniversary date of the patent application. If the patentee misses the deadline to pay the annuities, they may pay it after the deadline within a 6-month grace period provided that a surcharge is paid.
You can see a list of Latvia IP Firms here.