The President of the European Patent Office, Benoît Battistelli, and the Director-General of Tunisia’s National Standardisation and Industrial Property Institute (INNORPI), Amel Ben Farhat, announced on 04.10.2017 that starting 1 December 2017 European patents can be validated in Tunisia and thus regarded as national Tunisian ones.
The validation agreement with Tunisia, the third to enter into force following similar agreements with Morocco and the Republic of Moldova, will bring to 43 the number of countries where an invention can be protected through the single European examination and grant procedure. The European patent thus covers a market of some 700 million inhabitants.
Under the terms of the agreement, European patent applicants and proprietors will be able to validate the legal effects of their European patents and applications on Tunisian territory, even though Tunisia is not an EPO member state. Validated European patent applications and patents will have the same legal effect as Tunisian national applications and patents, and will be subject only to Tunisian patent legislation.
The term European patent is used to refer to patents granted under the European Patent Convention. The European Patent Convention (EPC), also known as the Convention on the Grant of European Patents of 5 October 1973, is a multilateral treaty instituting the European Patent Organisation and providing an autonomous legal system.
Source: EPO
