Patenting abroad

At present, if one wishes to protect his invention in a number of countries worldwide, he has several options to get a patent:

by applying direct for a national patent to each of the national patent offices of the countries where one wishes to obtain it (local patent attorney representation will be needed),
by filing an application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT application), (local patent attorney representation will subsequently be needed),
by filing an application for the grant of a regional patent, for example, European patent, ARIPO patent, OAPI patent (local patent attorney representation will be needed), Eurasian patent.

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 invention, 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.

Note: According to the law of the Republic of Belarus before filing any patent application with the foreign patent office the applicant must first file such patent application in the Republic of Belarus. Applications for granting patents under the Patent Cooperation Treaty or the Eurasian Patent Convention must be filed directly with the National Center of Intellectual Property of the Republic of Belarus.

ARIPO stands for African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation, which covers mostly English-speaking African countries. There are currently 22 states which are members of ARIPO. They are: Botswana, Cape Verde, Eswatini, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Sãn Tomé and Principe, Seichelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. 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 patent system. It is not possible to obtain national patents in these countries. Applications for obtaining of patents 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.