Patenting abroad

At present, if one wishes to protect his industrial design in a number of countries worldwide, he has several options to obtain protection:

national procedure by filing a separate application to each of the national patent offices of the countries where one wishes to obtain protection (local patent attorney representation will be needed),
regional procedure – for example, the European Union industrial design, ARIPO industrial design, OAPI industrial design (local patent attorney representation will be needed),
international procedure under the Hague System for the international deposit of industrial designs (for member states).

Patent attorneys of LEXPATENT will advise you, with due consideration of the concrete purposes and territories of patenting, on how you can optimally obtain rights to the industrial design, and through our close cooperation with leading patent attorneys representing various countries, including Russia, Germany, France, United Kingdom, USA, China, Japan, countries of Africa and many other countries, we may most competently represent the interests of the applicant abroad.

Hague System for the international deposit of industrial designs allows applicants to register an industrial design in member states of the Hague Agreement by filing a single application with the International Bureau of WIPO. The Hague System considerably simplifies the obtaining of protection and its management. However, these benefits are only possible for applicants from member states of the Hague Agreement concerning the International Deposit of Industrial Designs the list of which is available at: https://www.wipo.int.

ARIPO stands for African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation, which covers mostly English-speaking African countries. There are currently 19 states which are members of ARIPO. They are: Botswana, The Gambia, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Sãn Tomé and Principe, Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda. More detailed information about this regional organization can be found at: www.aripo.org.

OAPI stands for Organisation Africaine de la Propriete Intellectuelle, which covers mostly French-speaking African countries. The OAPI’s members include Burkina Faso, Benin, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Cameroon, Comoro Islands, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Chad, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea. These countries belong to the OAPI regional design registration system. It is not possible to obtain national registrations in these countries. Applications for registration of industrial designs may be filed through the ARIPO Office (located in Harare, Zimbabwe), or through the Office of one of the OAPI countries. More detailed information about this regional system can be found at: www.oapi.int.