The 43
rd
(30
th
regular) session of the Administrative Council of the Eurasian Patent Organization was held in Moscow from December 5 to 7, 2023. It was attended by the Head of the Intellectual Property Office of the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Armenia and the authorized representative of the Republic of Armenia in the Administrative Council K. Hambaryan.
The following main decisions were made during the meeting:
A decision has been made to adjust, from January 1, 2024, the amount of fees for legally significant and other actions performed in relation to applications for the issuance of Eurasian patents;
The amendments and additions to the Patent Directive, which will enter into force on January 1, 2024, have been approved:
A deadline has been established for submitting a claim when filing a Eurasian application,
A possibility has been introduced for the applicant to continue the processing of the Eurasian application in case of late submission of the claims when filing the Eurasian application, including the amended claims on the selected application,
The deadline for filing objections to the issuance of Eurasian patents for inventions and industrial designs under the administrative cancellation procedure has been extended from 9 months to 3 years,
The provisions concerning the examination of Eurasian applications for industrial designs have been clarified,
The possibility of dispute settlement through mediation has been introduced in case of the identity or similarity to the extent of confusion of an industrial design with trademarks with an earlier priority.
The Regulation on the Eurasian Pharmaceutical Register has been approved;
In addition, the departments of the EAPO states have identified priority areas of IT cooperation, in particular the exchange of information from industrial property registries, including within the framework of the development of the CISPATENT project, the use of artificial intelligence technologies in the field of IP, improvement of electronic interaction under the Eurasian patent procedure, etc.