(Publ. 11 FEB 2015) Starting on 1 March 2015, validation of patents for Morocco can be requested when filing a European Patent application.

An agreement is signed between the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Moroccan Office for Industrial and Commercial Property (OMPIC), Morocco may be designated upon payment of a fee in a European patent application (or a PCT application designating Europe). This agreement provides considerable simplification. European applications and patents validated for Morocco will have the same legal effects there as Moroccan ones and will be subject to Moroccan patent law.

The European Patent granting process administered by the EPO is a centralized system which, after a single examination procedure, enables an invention at present to be protected in 38 states, which all of them are signatories to the European Patent Convention (EPC) and further in two extension states that recognize European patents (Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro) upon request. Morocco is though neither a member of the EPC, nor considered as an “extension state”; the validation agreement is a bilateral agreement between the EPO and OMPIC. This will bring the total number of countries where protection can be obtained by way of a single European patent application to 41.

Similar agreements have been signed for Tunisia and Moldova but are yet to come into force.

If you have any queries regarding patent applications for Morocco, EU and/or other countries, please contact our Patent Consultants at +46 8 729 9100.