Patent International

A patent is a territorial right. It must therefore be applied for in all countries in which one wishes to obtain protection. There are several ways to extend the protection of a patent application to additional countries:

• national individual applications directly to the respective national patent offices,
• international application (PCT application) or
• regional application, e.g. a European application (EP application).

When extending protection to other countries, it is essential to observe the priority year: if you have filed a patent application in one country, you have exactly 12 months to file the same patent application in another country. In doing so, you must claim the priority of an earlier application in the new application. The earlier application must be a first filing, i.e. it cannot claim another priority in turn.