Full details of the Uzbek patent law have only recently become available. Uzbekistan has not yet joined the Eurasian patent system and therefore, for the time being, national applications may continue to be the only means for securing patent protection. The law contains a number of exclusions on patentability that in form, although maybe not in practice, go beyond the normal list of unpatentable subject matter, including designs and plans for constructions, buildings and territories, methods for organization and management economies and integrated microcircuit topographies. Preliminary examination is automatic, but substantive examination is only carried out automatically in the case of inventions relating to cotton growing, cotton processing, sericulture, silk production, heliotechnologies, water conservation and land reclamation. For inventions of all other types, examination must be requested within three years of the priority date (or apparently within one year of entry into the national phase for a PCT application). If no examination is requested, protection will expire five years from the priority date. If examination is requested, the maximum term is twenty years from the priority date. An interesting feature of the law is that all fees are set as percentages of the national minimum salary.