Eleven former USSR republics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Turkmenistan being the exceptions) have signed a convention for the establishment of a Eurasian Patent Office which will be set up in Moscow. The intention is that a single patent application will be able to be filed and prosecuted in Russian and give rise to a single patent that will be enforceable throughout all of the designated states. To this extent the new system seems more akin to the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization than it does to the European Patent Convention.

The term of patents to be granted under the convention will be twenty years from filing and foreigners will be able to file applications either directly with the Eurasian Patent Office or through PCT. Although we do not yet have details of the full provisions of the convention, a press release issued by the World Intellectual Property Organization indicates that "the convention reflects the contemporary trends of patent legislation and administration and is compatible with the multilateral industrial property treaties administered by WIPO and the provisions on patents contained in the TRIPS draft of GATT."

It is understood that, although the founding members of the convention are all republics that were formerly part of the USSR, membership is open to any other country that wishes to join. As yet no date for implementation of the convention has been set.

June 1994 Index