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Brief comment on the new Law on Industrial Property
There are no major changes involving trademarks.
The major changes involve patents. Short-term patents (10-year validity) are introduced along with patents (20-year patents). Short-term patents and patents are granted after publication of the patent application without conduction of substantial examination. The Office issues the corresponding Grant Decision, which is valid till the end of tenth year (calculated from the corresponding application). At any time after issuance of this Grant Decision, and not later than the expiry of the ninth year of validity, the owner of the patent (20-year validity) must submit to the Bosnian Patent Office a proof that the patent has been granted by EPO or some other PCT approved examination body. After receiving this proof, the Office issues the Final Grant Decision for patents (20-year validity).
Brief comment on new official fees
There are no big changes concerning fees for application and 10-year maintenance of trademarks, but there are some changes regarding trademark searches. For example, different fees are prescribed for a search involving a wordmark compared to a search involving a figurative mark. Fees for certificate issuance are defined for the first time.
1. TRADEMARKS
- Issuance of certificates is introduced for the first time.
- Trademark search has different fees depending not only on number of classes, but also on the search criteria (figurative or verbal trademark, against identical or similar marks, against the proprietor's name)
- It is possible to divide one application into two or more applications.
- It is possible to divide a trademark registration into two or more registrations.
The major changes involve patents. Old fees for a patent application were flat fees (regardless of number of pages of patent description and number of claims). The new fees are now calculated on the bases of number of pages of patent description and claims. Fees for certificate issuance are also defined. Although fees for printing a granted patent (i. e. the corresponding patent documentation) are prescribed, it is not yet clear whether and when the Bosnian Patent Office will actually do the printing.
2. PATENTS
- For a new patent application, extra fees have to be paid for every page of the patent specification above 30 pages.
- For a new patent application, extra fees have to be paid for every patent claim above 10 claims.
- Short-term patents (10-year validity) and patents (20-year validity) are introduced in the new Law on Industrial Property. After publication of a patent application (for short-term patent or patent) the Bosnian Patent Office issues the Grant Decision. The Final Grant Decision is issued for patents after submission of documentation, which proves that the patent has been granted by EPO or some other PCT approved examination body. Consequently, new fees are introduced for:
- Publication and Grand Decision issuance (for short-term patents and patents)
- Final Grant Decision issuance for patents
- We have not included charges for printing patent documentation of granted patents. It seems that the new Law on Industrial Property has conflicting articles, so it is not clear whether printing of patent documentation is compulsory or optional. It is not yet clear whether and when the Bosnian Patent Office will actually start printing patent documentation. We have tried to get clarification from the Office, but the Office is still contemplating a solution to this problem. We will inform you as soon as we get this clarification.
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