Patent registration in Romania. Romania is a country at the confluence of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Romania is a developing country, with a high-income economy, ranking 49th in the Human Development Index. It has the world’s 45th largest economy by nominal GDP. Romania experienced rapid economic growth in the early 2000s; its economy is now based predominantly on services. It is a producer and net exporter of machines and electric energy through companies such as Automobile Dacia and OMV Petrom. 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 Romania.
Patent in Romania
According to the Romania law, a patent in Romania is a grant of a property right given by the Government to an inventor. With a patent, the inventor, or the patentee will have the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling the invention in a country, or importing the invention into a country, along with other rights to protect their best interests.
To be patentable in Romania, an invention must satisfy the new, nonobvious, inventive, and industrially applicable requirements.
Romania provides a 6 months novelty grace period. If the invention is exposed to the world publicly within 6 months from the filing date, the patent application will still be considered valid.
In addition, an invention that is patentable can also be an improvement on existing items or methods.
On the other hand, the unpatentable subjects in Romania are:
- Discoveries, laws of nature, and mathematical methods;
- Aesthetic designs;
- Systems, rules, and methods for the performance of mental labor, games or management, computer programs;
- Presentation of data and abstract ideas.
Necessary documents for patent registration in Romania
The necessary documents for patent registration in Romania 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 official language of the Romanian patent application is Romanian.
The applicant may file the application in a different language but a translation of the documents must be provided within 2 months from the filing date. It should be noted that there are charges for filing the application in a different language.
The procedure for patent registration in Romania
To obtain a patent in Romania, the applicant needs to file their patent application to the IP Office of Romania.
After the formal examination of the formality of the application, the applicant needs to file a request for substantive examination within 30 months from the filing date.
It should be noted that Romania offers an accelerate substantive examination process. The request to expedite the substantive examination must be filed within 18 months from the filing date.
If there are no errors in the examinations, the patent will be granted to the applicant provided that all the official fees are paid within 4 months from the decision announcement date.
To maintain the patent validity, the applicant needs to pay the annual maintenance fees.
IP treaties that Romania is a member of:
Romania is a party to the following international trademark treaties:
- The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property;
- The World Intellectual Property Organisation Convention;
- The Madrid Agreement on the International Registration of Marks;
- The Madrid Protocol;
- The Nice Agreement on the International Classification of Goods and Services;
- The Vienna Agreement Establishing an International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks; and
- The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
You can see a list of Romania IP firms here.