How long a European patent lasts, country by country: validation, renewal fees and lapses

One grant, many patents

The European Patent Office examines one application and grants one patent, and at that moment the “European patent” stops being one thing. In each contracting state the proprietor chooses, it becomes a national patent, governed by that state’s law, paid for at that state’s office and enforced in that state’s courts. Since June 2023 there is an alternative for most EU states: a single unitary patent. Either way, the EP number printed on the document is a label for a family of rights, not a right in itself.

The term: twenty years from filing

A European patent’s maximum term is twenty years from the date of filing of the application (Article 63 EPC), the same in every state. Not from the priority date, which can be a year earlier; not from grant, which can be five years later; and the term is not extended by the time the EPO took. Where the application came through the PCT, the filing date is the international filing date. The only extension available for medicines is the SPC, which is a separate right.

Before grant: pending rights and fees

Published applications give provisional protection from publication, enforceable only once the patent is granted. Renewal fees are paid to the EPO from the third year after filing, each year, until the year in which the grant is published; an unpaid fee, after a six-month grace period with surcharge, means the application is deemed withdrawn. A long examination therefore costs money every year, and applications that the proprietor has lost interest in die quietly in the EPO’s register.

At grant: validation

Within three months of the publication of the grant, the proprietor must validate the patent in each state where it wants it. In states party to the London Agreement that means little or nothing (the UK, Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Nordics, among others, require no translation or only a translation of the claims); in Italy, Spain, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Czechia, Greece and others a full translation into the national language must be filed, with a fee. Each validation is a decision with a cost, so proprietors validate where they expect to sell or to be copied, which for a medicine is typically the large markets plus a handful of others. In a state where the patent was not validated, there is no patent, and the register will show nothing or “not validated”.

A unitary patent is requested instead within one month of grant and covers the participating EU states as one right: one renewal fee to the EPO each year, one lapse, one revocation. It does not cover the UK, Spain, Poland, Croatia, Switzerland, Norway or Turkey, where national validation remains the only route; a proprietor can combine a unitary patent with national validations in those states.

After grant: renewal fees, every year, everywhere

From the year after grant each national part is kept alive by an annual renewal fee to that country’s office (or to the EPO for a unitary patent). Fees rise with age. An unpaid fee, after the grace period, lapses the patent in that country; restoration is possible for a limited time on showing the failure was unintentional, and otherwise the lapse is permanent. Proprietors prune: a patent that is validated in twelve countries at grant is commonly in force in six by year fifteen, the ones where the product sells. For a medicine that is being sold in a country, lapse of the compound patent is rare but not unknown; lapse of secondary patents is common.

Ending early: opposition, limitation, revocation

For nine months after grant anyone can oppose the patent at the EPO; a successful opposition revokes every national part at once, and an unsuccessful one leaves them all standing. The proprietor can itself limit (narrow) or surrender the patent centrally. After the opposition window, validity is attacked country by country in national courts, or at the Unified Patent Court for the participating states together, and a revocation there affects only the countries it covers. This is why a product can be “patent revoked” in the UK and “patent in force” in France on the same day with the same EP number.

Reading “in force” on a register

The EPO’s register shows the procedure to grant and, after grant, links to each national register; it does not know whether national fees have been paid. The national register does. “In force” there means the last renewal was paid and no lapse, revocation or expiry has been recorded; “lapsed”, “ceased” or “not in force” means it was not. A register updated monthly can show a patent as in force for weeks after the grace period ended. Check the date of the last renewal and the status date, not only the status word.

Why it matters, by role

For a generics or launch planner, the country list is the first question: where was the compound patent validated, where is it still paid up, and where has it been revoked. The answer sets a different date, or no date, in each country, and the SPC can only exist where the patent does.

For a parallel trader, a product can be free of patent protection in a small market (never validated, or lapsed) while protected in the destination; that is not an export opportunity, because the destination’s patent is what is infringed.

For a buyer, the lesson is the same as for SPCs: “patent expiry” is a per-country fact. MPA Search records the patent and SPC position per country with the register’s status and date, and the glossary explains the fields.