Relation With The Patent Cooperation Treaty
A European patent application may result from the filing of an international application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and the entry into "European regional phase". The European patent application is therefore said to be a "Euro-PCT application" and the EPO is said to act as a designated or elected Office. In case of conflict between the provisions of the EPC and those of the PCT, the provisions of the PCT and its Regulations prevail over those of the EPC.
Eleven EPC Contracting States, namely Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Monaco, the Netherlands and Slovenia have "closed their national route". This means that it is no longer possible to obtain a national patent protection through the international (PCT) phase without entering into the regional European phase and obtaining a European patent. Lithuania will also "close its national route" on 4 September 2014.
Read more about this topic: European Patent Convention
Famous quotes containing the words relation, patent, cooperation and/or treaty:
“It would be disingenuous, however, not to point out that some things are considered as morally certain, that is, as having sufficient certainty for application to ordinary life, even though they may be uncertain in relation to the absolute power of God.”
—René Descartes (1596–1650)
“This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“We fatuously hoped that we might pluck from the human tragedy itself a consciousness of a common destiny which should bring its own healing, that we might extract from life’s very misfortunes a power of cooperation which should be effective against them.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“There is between sleep and us something like a pact, a treaty with no secret clauses, and according to this convention it is agreed that, far from being a dangerous, bewitching force, sleep will become domesticated and serve as an instrument of our power to act. We surrender to sleep, but in the way that the master entrusts himself to the slave who serves him.”
—Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907)