Norway became a member of the EPC in January 2008. This means that European patent applications and granted patents can take effect in Norway.

You can submit your application electronically directly to the European Patent Office (EPO). You will then receive a discount on the application fee and will immediately receive acknowledgement that the application has been filed.

The application will be processed centrally by the EPO, which will grant a European patent effective in the countries designated in the application. You must take the initiative yourself to validate the patent in the countries in which you want the patent to apply. You then pay a validation fee and annual fees to each country. Read more about validating a European patent

You can also file an application for a European patent at the national patent office in one of the member states, including the Norwegian Industrial Property Office. The national authority will then forward the application to the EPO, which will perform the formal checks. The EPO will decide whether this date becomes the filing date during the formal checks. The Norwegian Industrial Property Office therefore does not take any responsibility if the date of receipt does not fulfil the requirements for filing date.

• Rules for representation before the EPO
• More about the application process on the EPO website
• Member states
• Inventions of importance to defence of the realm

Provisional patent protection in Norway

To obtain provisional protection in Norway for a European patent application, you must translate the patent claims into Norwegian and send the translation to the Norwegian Industrial Property Office.

The following must be supplied to the Norwegian Industrial Property Office before the patent is granted at the EPO to obtain provisional protection in Norway:

• Patent claims in Norwegian
• Information on application number and/or publication number at the EPO
• Information on name and address of applicant
• Power of attorney, if applicable. If power of attorney is not given the application will be published without an attorney.

The Norwegian Industrial Property Office will announce in the Norwegian Patent Gazette (Norsk patenttidende) that patent claims have been filed in Norwegian, and make the translation available to everyone.

The provisional protection applies only so long as the Norwegian and English texts correspond. You can submit a correction to the translation. You will have to pay a fee for a correction to the translation.

When submitting a translation or correction, you must tell us that they have been submitted in order to obtain provisional protection.

The Norwegian Industrial Property Office has to announce that it has received a correction to the translation for the correction to be valid.