On 1 October 2022 Montenegro (ME) will become the 39th EPC member state.
This means that European patent applications having a filing date of 1 October 2022 or later will automatically designate Montenegro in addition to the previous 38 EPC member states (or contracting states).
States in which patent protection can be secured via a European patent application fall into three distinct groups and, for ease of reference, we provide a brief up-to-date summary of EPC member states, extension states and validation states:
Member states
All member states at the filing date are automatically deemed designated in the patent request and a single designation fee is deemed to cover the all EPC member states. Read more