Patents

Maintenance fees for maintaining the validity of a European patent with effects for the Slovak Republic

The payment of maintenance fees for maintaining the validity of a European patent with effects for the Slovak Republic (hereinafter referred to as the maintenance fee for a European patent) is regulated by Act č. 495/2008 Z.z. on the fee for maintaining the validity of a patent, on the fee for maintaining the validity of a European patent with effects for the Slovak Republic and on the fee for maintaining the validity of the supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products and plant protection products and on amending and supplementing certain acts. The proprietor of a European patent shall pay an annual maintenance fee for the maintenance of the validity of the European patent in the Slovak Republic.

The payer of the maintenance fee for a European patent shall be the proprietor of the European patent with effect for the Slovak Republic (hereinafter referred to as the European patent) or a person authorised by him.The maintenance fee for a European patent shall be paid for each year of the term of validity of the European patent. The beginning of the individual years of validity of the European patent shall coincide with the date and month of filing of the European patent application.
The first maintenance fee for a European patent shall be payable, without any invitation from the Office, in respect of the year following the year in which the grant of the European patent is announced in the European Patent Journal. That fee shall be payable at the latest on the day coinciding with the day and month of the filing of the European patent application in the year in which the grant of the European patent was notified in the European Journal or within two months of the date of the notification of the grant of the European patent in the European Journal, whichever is the later.
The maintenance fee for the European patent for each subsequent year shall be payable without a request from the Office and shall be payable at the latest on the day on which the previous year of validity of the European patent expires.
The fee payer shall be obliged to indicate at the time of each payment of the maintenance fee which European patent the payment relates to.
If the maintenance fee has not been paid within the time limit laid down in the Law on maintenance fees, the fee may be paid by the fee payer subsequently within a period of six months from the date on which it is due, but in that case he shall be liable to pay, at the same time as the maintenance fee is due, a surcharge equal to the amount of the maintenance fee payable.
If the proprietor of a European patent has filed with the Office a written declaration that he grants to anyone the right to exploit the invention for a reasonable remuneration under the conditions laid down in Section 25 of Act č. 435/2001 Z.z. on patents, supplementary protection certificates and on amendment and supplementation of certain acts (hereinafter referred to as Act No 435/2001 Coll.), the maintenance fee shall be paid at 50% of the rate specified in the tariff schedule.
On the expiry of the time limit laid down for payment of the maintenance fee, the European patent shall lapse pursuant to Article 31 of Act No 435/2001 Coll.
The scale of maintenance fees is available at:
https://www.indprop.gov.sk/patenty/patenty/udrziavacie-poplatky
Information on the payment of maintenance fees is available at:
https://www.indprop.gov.sk/vseobecne-dokumenty/udrziavacie-poplatky-informacie-pre-poplatnikov
Data concerning European patent applications and European patents with a designation for the Slovak Republic are available to the public at:
https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/?lang=sk
https://www.indprop.gov.sk/produkty-a-sluzby/produkty-uradu/vestnik-upv-sr