III. Simultaneous Protection

Yes (under certain conditions)

Yes (under certain conditions)

Article 31 of the Industrial Property Act governs simultaneous protection (machine English translation):

(1) If a European patent, with which protection is requested in the Republic of Slovenia, regardless of whether the unitary effect is registered, and a national patent granted to the same person for the same invention, have the same date of filing and the same date of claimed priority the national patent is considered to have no legal effect from the date on which the EPO published the mention of the grant of the European patent in the European Patent Bulletin.

(2) If the EPO has registered unitary effect for a European patent with which protection is requested in the Republic of Slovenia, it is considered that from the date when the EPO published the mention of the grant of the European patent in the European Patent Bulletin, this European patent has no legal effect as national patent entered in the patent register at the Office.

According to Industrial Property Act (Article 3(3)), a national application shall not give rise to an industrial property right if a prior application has been filed abroad and seeking protection in the Republic of Slovenia. Therefore, if the European patent application has been filed, earlier than a national patent application for the same invention, the national patent application will have no effect.

If the national patent application has been filed earlier than European patent application, the national patent application will be effective. In this case, the simultaneous protection is possible.