Costa Rica Set to Allow Validation of European Patents as National Patents

It has been announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) has signed an agreement with the Ministry of Justice and Peace of Costa Rica to enable European patents to be validated in Costa Rica. A date has not yet been provided for the validation agreement entering into force.

Costa Rica will not be a member of the EPC, nor a so-called extension state. Instead, the validation agreement is a bilateral arrangement. Costa Rica is the seventh country to sign an agreement of this nature with the EPO, and the first in the Americas. Similar bilateral agreements are already in force enabling validation of European patents in Morocco, Moldova, Tunisia, Cambodia and Georgia, and an agreement has also been signed between the EPO and Laos (which is yet to enter into force).

The practical result of this announcement is that, once both the agreements with Costa Rica and Laos come into force, it will be possible to cover up to 47 countries with a single European patent application. Although details have not yet been provided, we expect the Costa Rican validation agreement to be similar in practice to the existing validation agreements with Morocco, Moldova, Tunisia, Cambodia and Georgia. Specifically, once the agreement has come into force, any applicant filing a European patent application (or a PCT application designating Europe) will be able to pursue protection in Costa Rica by paying a validation fee for Costa Rica to the EPO within the same period as for paying designation and extension fees.

The EPO's announcement can be seen here.