Croatian Parliament affirms the Patent Law Treaty

The Patent Law Treaty (PLT) and its regulations were published on October 6, 2004 in the Official Gazette No. 10/2004; Section on International Treaties.

The law came into force eight days after its publication although the provisions of the PLT came into effect on the date of publication.

The Croatian administrative body competent for intellectual property matters shall be responsible for the implementation of the PLT.

The provisions and the regulations of the PLT will be applicable to national and regional applications for patents for invention as well as patents of addition, filed with or for the Office of a Contracting Party.

Contracting Party is defined as any state or inter-governmental organization that is party to the PLT.

In addition, the provisions and the regulations of the PLT will also be applicable to national and regional applications, which are:

a) Types of applications permitted to be filed as international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty,

b) Divisional applications of the types of applications referred as per above, for patents for invention or for patents of addition, as referred to in Article 4 (1) or (2) of the Paris Convention.

Subject to the provisions of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), the provisions of the PLT, as well as the regulations, shall apply to international applications, for patents for invention and for patents of addition, under the PCT:

c) in respect of the time limits applicable under Articles 22 and 39 (1) of the Patent Cooperation Treaty in the Office of a Contracting Party,

d) in respect of any procedure commenced on or after the date on which processing or examination of the international application may start under Article 23 or 40 of that Treaty.

The provisions of the PLT and the regulations shall also be applicable to national and regional patents for invention, and to national and regional patents of addition, which have been granted with effect for a Contracting Party.

However, no Contracting Party shall be obliged to apply the provisions of the PLT and the regulations to any procedure in proceedings with respect to applications that are pending, and to patents which are in force, if such procedure commenced before the date on which the PLT binds that Contracting Party.

The regulations annexed to the PLT provide:

• Rules concerning the matters which the PLT expressly provides are to be “prescribed in the Regulations”;
• Details useful in the implementation of the provisions of the PLT, and
• Administrative requirements, matters or procedures.

The regulations also provide rules concerning the formal requirements relating to requests for recordation of change in name or address; recordation of change in applicant or owner; recordation of a license or a security interest and correction of a mistake.

It is now expected that the provisions of the PLT will reflect the current provisions of the Patent Law and regulations with regards to granting procedure itself and the amendments to the existing Law will be made accordingly.

Among other things, amendments provide an opportunity for a Contracting Party to:

• Make observations, amendments or corrections in case of intended revocation or invalidations of a patent;
• Have the right for reinstatement of rights after a finding of due care or unintentional acts by the Office;
• File electronically, where such filing is available;
• Have the maintenance fee paid by any person (Article 7(b)).

For more information on the PLT, please contact our Croatia representative.