Romanian legislation requirements regarding patent applications

Filing a patent application

The applicant of a patent of invention may be any natural or legal person, Romanian or foreign, resident in a member state of the Paris Convention.

The applicant shall file his application in Romanian. Foreign applicants may file the description and their claims in a foreign language only if they file the translation of the documents in two month time.

If the applicant claims the right of priority, the application shall be filed to The State Office for Inventions and TradeMarks within three months from the filing date of the application. In this case the claimed priority will be accompanied by the filing date and registration number of the basic application, a priority certificate issued by the authority that received the basic application and the declaration of the first applicant if the Romanian applicant is not the same as the one in the priority document.

The applicants, foreign citizens, natural persons domiciled abroad, companies with the headquarters abroad, must be represented at The State Office for Inventions and TradeMarks by an industrial property consultant who has the legal right to practice (member of the Romanian National Chamber of Consultants in Industrial Property), on the basis of a warranty.

The patent application contains the description of the invention, the claims of the applicant and explanatory drawings but also information regarding the applicant.

Publication of the patent application

Patent applications filed by national route shall be published as soon as possible after a eighteen month period from the date of filing or as soon as possible in the case of claimed and recognized priority.

The dead-line for the payment of the publication fee is six months from the filing day or three months from the priority claim.

Starting with the publication date of the patent application, the applicant enjoys a provisional protection until The State Office for Inventions and TradeMarks makes its final decision. This provisional protection means that no third parties are allowed to produce, sell, use, etc the object of invention without the inventor's consent.

Examination

The patent application is examined in order to verify if the invention is new, if it involves an inventive step or if it has industrial application.

The subject-matter of the invention may be a product or a process in all technological fields.

The period of the protection granted through the patent is determined by the content of claims, interpreted in connection with the description and claims of the invention.

The patent must meet the requirement of the unity of invention meaning that the application must regard one single invention or a group of inventions linked together so as to form a single general inventive concept.

If the invention regards micro-organisms, a document stating that the micro-organism has been deposited to an international depositing place is necessary.

The examination of a patent application can take 18 to 48 from the filing of the patent application.

The granting decision together with the description and the claims of the invention will be published in the Official Buletin of Industrial Property.

Any interested party is entitled to request in writing and on valid grounds the cancellation of the decision that granted a patent within six months from the publication of the granting decision.

Issue of patent

The fee for the patent for invention is to be paid in a twelve month period since the publication of the granting decision in the Official Bulletin of Industrial Property

PCT-APPLICATION (Romania - designated or elected State)

Documents required to obtain a filing date:

Services:

• Drafting and filing the patent application to The State Office for Inventions and TradeMarks;
• Legal assistance for foreign and Romanian clients before The State Office for State Inventions and TradeMarks;
• Drafting answers to notifications of the examiner from The State Office for Inventions and TradeMarks;
• Contesting the decisions of the State Office for Inventions and TradeMarks;
• Counseling for enforcement of IP rights in Romania;
• Legal advice in the negotiation of cession or license contracts;
• Legal advice regarding the possible infringement of patents by third parties;
• Technical, juridical and extra juridical analysis regarding counterfeit.