- Chapter I General Provisions
- Chapter II Patentable Inventions
- Chapter III Registration, Publication and Examination of the Patent Application; Grant of the Patent
- Chapter IV Rights and Obligations
- Chapter V Transfer of Rights
- Chapter VI Defense of Rights in Inventions
- Chapter VII Responsibilities of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks
- Chapter VIII Transitional and Final Provisions
Patent Law
(No. 64 of October 11, 1991) *
CONTENTS **
Sections
Chapter I: General Provisions........................................................................................................... 1 to 6
Chapter II: Patentable Inventions...................................................................................................... 7 to 13
Chapter III: Registration, Publication and Examination of the Patent Application; Grant of the Patent................................................................................................................................................ 14 to 33
Chapter IV: Rights and Obligations.................................................................................................. 34 to 47
Chapter V: Transfer of Rights........................................................................................................... 48 to 54
Chapter VI: Defense of Rights in Inventions.................................................................................... 55 to 62
Chapter VII: Responsibilities of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks............................ 63 and 64
Chapter VIII: Transitional and Final Provisions............................................................................... 65 to 70
Chapter I General Provisions
1. The rights in inventions shall be recognized and protected on the territory of Romania by the grant of titles of protection by the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks under the conditions specified in this Law.
2. The title of protection for an invention shall be the patent, which shall confer on its owner an exclusive right of exploitation for the duration of its validity.
3. The right to the patent shall belong to the inventor or to his successor in title.
4. Where an invention has been made jointly by two or more inventors, each shall have the status of joint inventor and the rights shall belong to them jointly.
Where two or more persons have made the same invention independently of each other, the right to the patent shall belong to the one who first files a patent application with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks, or, where priority has been recognized, to the person whose patent application has the earliest priority date, provided that the qualifying application was not refused, withdrawn or abandoned.
5. Where the inventor is an employee and there is no contractual provision more favorable to him, the right to the patent shall belong:
(a) to the employer in the case of inventions made by the employee under a contract of employment that provides expressly for the performance of inventive activities, where the said activities correspond to his actual duties; the inventor shall be paid additional remuneration specified by contract;
* Romanian title: Lege privind brevetele de inventie.
Entry into force: January 21, 1992.
Source: Monitorul Oficial al României, of October 21, 1991, No. 212, pp. 1 to 7; English translation supplied by the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
** Added by WIPO.
(b) to the employee for inventions made by him either in the course of his duties or within the area of concern of the employer, through knowledge or use of technology or means specific to the employer or information available on the premises of the employer, or again with material assistance from the employer, except where otherwise provided by contract.
Where the invention is the result of a research contract, unless otherwise provided the right to the patent shall belong to the employer who commissioned the research, the inventor being entitled to additional remuneration specified in an additional clause in the contract.
In the cases provided for in the first paragraph under (a) and (b) and in the second paragraph, the inventor and the employer shall be under the obligation to inform each other in writing of the making and the stage of development of the invention, and to abstain from disclosing it.
Failure to observe the obligation to inform shall result in the liability of the person responsible.
If, in the case provided for in the first paragraph under (a) and in the second paragraph, the patent application has not been filed with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks within 60 days of the employee's having informed the employer in writing of the contents of the description of the invention, the right to file the patent application and to be granted a patent, in the absence of any other agreement between the parties, shall belong to the employee as provided in the first paragraph under (b).
In the case provided for in the first paragraph under (b), the employer shall have a preferential right to conclude a contract in respect of his employee's invention, which right shall be exercised within three months of the date of the employee's offer; in the absence of agreement on the contract price, the latter shall be established by judicial decision.
6. Foreign natural persons or legal entities having their domicile or registered office outside the territory of Romania shall enjoy the benefits of the provisions of this Law in accordance with international treaties on inventions to which Romania is party or on the basis of reciprocity.
Chapter II Patentable Inventions
7. An invention shall be patentable if it is new, involves an inventive step and is susceptible of industrial application.
A patentable invention may relate to a product, a process or a method.
An invention relating to a new variety of plant, a hybrid or a new animal breed shall be patentable insofar as it is new, distinct, uniform and stable.
8. An invention shall be considered new if it does not form part of the state of the art. The state of the art includes all knowledge that has been made available to the public up to the date on which the patent application was registered or up to the date of recognized priority.
Disclosure shall not be taken into account when it was effected by the inventor or his successor in title and occurred within the 12 months preceding the date on which the patent application was registered or the date of recognized priority.
9. An invention shall be regarded as involving an inventive step if, to a person skilled in the relevant field, it does not obviously derive from prior art.
10. An invention shall be susceptible of industrial application if its subject-matter may be used in at least one field of industrial activity, agriculture or any other activity, and may be reproduced with the same characteristics whenever necessary.
11. Varieties of plants, hybrids or animal breeds that form the subject-matter of an invention must remain uniform and stable in their relevant characteristics after repeated propagation or at the end of each breeding cycle, and must not have been previously marketed or offered for sale.
12. Inventions contrary to morality or public policy shall not be patentable.
13. The following shall not be considered patentable within the meaning of Section 7: ideas, discoveries, scientific theories, mathematical methods, computer programs as such, solutions of an economic or organizational character, diagrams, educational and teaching methods, rules of games, city planning systems, systematization plans and methods, physical phenomena as such, culinary recipes and creations of purely aesthetic character.
Chapter III Registration, Publication and Examination of the Patent Application; Grant of the Patent
14. The patent application, comprising the personal particulars of the applicant, accompanied by a description of the invention, claims and where appropriate explanatory drawings, with all written matter in Romanian, shall be filed with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks to constitute a regular national filing.
The patent application shall contain particulars serving to identify the inventor, failing which the patent applied for shall not be granted.
The patent application shall be filed by the person entitled to the grant of a patent under Sections 3, 4, first paragraph, and 5, either in person or through an authorized agent whose domicile or registered office is in Romania.
15. The State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall register the patent application on condition that at least the following documents have been filed:
(a) an application containing the express request for the grant of a patent, together with particulars for the identification of the applicant;
(b) a description of the invention.
The claims and explanatory drawings relating to the invention may be filed within two months of the registration of the patent application.
The patent application shall be registered in the National Register of Patent Applications, which shall be confidential.
16. The date of regular national filing shall be that by which all the documents provided for in the first paragraph of Section 14 have been filed, or the date provided for in treaties or conventions to which Romania is party.
The date of regular national filing shall also be recognized in cases where, on justified grounds, foreign natural persons or legal entities have filed the description, claims and drawings in a foreign language, provided that within two months of the date of registration of the application an accurate translation in Romanian of the said documents is filed with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
17. The regular national filing of a patent application secures a right of priority, starting on the date of the said filing or on the priority date claimed and recognized, in relation to any filing of the same invention effected at a later date or having a later recognized priority date.
18. The invention shall be presented in a description, claims and drawings in a manner sufficiently clear, complete and correct from a scientific and technical point of view for a person skilled in the art to be able to make it without engaging in inventive activity.
If the invention relates to reproducible biological material that cannot be so described that it can be made by a person skilled in the art, and if the material is not available to the public, the description of the invention shall be accompanied by a document attesting the deposit of the material with a depositary institution designated by the Government or having the status of international depositary authority. Such deposit shall be effected not later than on the date of registration of the patent application.
19. A patent application shall relate to one invention only or to a group of inventions so linked as to form a single inventive concept.
Patent applications that fail to meet the condition specified in the first paragraph may be divided by the inventor or his successor in title, either on his own initiative or at the request of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks, until such time as a decision has been made on the said patent applications.
20. Patent applications may contain one or more priority claims based on one or more prior applications having the status of regular national filings, in accordance with conventions to which Romania is party.
Foreign natural persons or legal entities of States party to the conventions to which Romania is also party, and nationals of such States or their successors in title, shall have a right of priority starting on the date of first filing if they apply for the grant of a patent in respect of the same invention within 12 months of that date.
It shall be acceptable to claim multiple priorities in a patent application, provided that the unity of invention requirement specified in Section 19 is met and the priority period specified in the second paragraph above is observed.
21. Priority may also be claimed in a patent application based on a filing made after a product embodying the invention has been displayed at an international exhibition organized on the territory of Romania or of a State party to conventions to which Romania is also party, provided that the patent application is filed within six months of the date on which the product was put on display at the exhibition.
The six-month period shall not extend the period of priority provided for in the second paragraph of Section 20.
22. Priority as provided for in Sections 20 and 21 shall be claimed at the same time as the patent application is filed, and shall be attested by priority documents.
Where the applicant has failed to claim priority at the time of filing the patent application, he may claim it up to two months following the date of registration of the patent application.
Priority documents shall be filed within three months of the date of the regular national filing.
Failure to observe the time limits specified in the second and third paragraphs above shall result in refusal to recognize the priority claimed.
23. Patent applications that meet the requirements specified in Sections 14, 15 and 16 shall be published immediately after an 18-month period has expired following the date of regular national filing or of claimed and recognized priority, except in the case of applications provided for in the second and third paragraphs of Section 44, and those in respect of which a decision has been taken, during the same period, to grant or refuse the patent, or which have been withdrawn, as provided in Sections 7 to 11 or in Section 12 or 13.
24. At the request of an entitled natural person or legal entity, publication may be effected within a shorter time than that provided for in Section 23.
25. The publication of patent applications may be accompanied by a search report.
If the search report is not published at the same time as the patent application, it shall be published subsequently.
26. Examination with a view to the grant of a patent may be requested on the filing date of the patent application or within 30 months of the said date.
Patent applications in respect of which examination with a view to the grant of a patent has not been requested within the period specified in the first paragraph above shall be considered abandoned and shall be rejected.
27. The examination of patent applications shall take the following into account:
(a) fulfillment of the conditions set forth in Sections 14, 15, 16 and 18;
(b) the conditions set forth in Sections 12 and 13;
(c) priority claimed under Sections 20, 21 and 22;
(d) unity of invention under Section 19;
(e) the criteria under Sections 7 to 11.
28. The State Office for Inventions and Trademarks is authorized to request the applicant or his successor in title to provide explanations or documents considered necessary in connection with the regular filing made or in order to meet the conditions of patentability.
The applicant shall file with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks all public documents connected with his invention, including copies of patents granted in other States.
At the request of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks or on his own initiative, the applicant or his successor in title may, until such time as a decision is made, modify the claims, the drawings or the description if such modifications do not extend beyond the limits of disclosure of the invention on the filing date of the patent application.
29. The decision to grant a patent or to reject a patent application shall be taken by the Examination Board of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks in accordance with Sections 7 to 11, 12 and 13 of this Law and on the basis of the patent application examination report within 18 months of the date on which examination of the application was requested.
Decisions to grant patents taken by the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall be published within 30 days, and the descriptions, claims and drawings of patented inventions shall be published within three months.
The State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall issue a decision rejecting a patent application on expiration of the time limits provided for in Sections 26 and 47 in cases of abandonment or failure to pay registration, publication or examination fees, and shall record the withdrawal of a patent application when such withdrawal has been notified in writing by the person entitled to do so.
All decisions issued by the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall be substantiated and registered in the National Register of Patent Applications.
30. The State Office for Inventions and Trademarks may revoke its decisions ex officio for failure to comply with the conditions laid down in this Law until such time as the said decisions are made public.
31. Patents shall be issued by the Director General of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks in accordance with the grant decision.
Patents shall be recorded in the National Register of Patents.
32. The term of validity of patents shall be 20 years starting on the date on which a regular national filing was effected.
33. The term of validity of patents for inventions that improve on other patented inventions and cannot be worked without the previously patented inventions shall be limited to that of the patent granted for the invention on which the improvement was made, but shall be no shorter than 10 years.
Chapter IV Rights and Obligations