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Turkey now a member state of the European Patent Organisation
Munich, 1 November 2000 -- Turkey has ratified the European Patent Convention (EPC) and becomes a member state of the European Patent Organisation with effect from November. This brings to twenty the number of such states, comprising the fifteen EU countries, and, along with the latest addition, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Cyprus.
Now that Turkey has acceded to the EPC, European patents can be filed for a total of 26 European states: Albania, Lithuania, Latvia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia, though not members of the Organisation, have entered into an agreement with it to extend the protection conferred by European patent applications and patents to their territory. This opens up the European patent market to over 450 million people.
The European Patent Organisation was set up under the European Patent Convention, which was signed in Munich on 5 October 1973 and entered into force on 7 October 1977. Its executive body is the European Patent Office, which is headquartered in Munich and has offices in The Hague, Berlin and Vienna.