Validation of European Patents in Hungary as of January 1, 2011

With an effect of January 1, 2011 Hungary has joined the London Agreement. Accordingly, European Patents granted after January 1, 2011 can be validated by translating the claims only, provided that the description is in English. If it is other than English, the English translation of the description (and drawing copies) must be filed together with the Hungarian claims.

The detailed process of the validation is different in case the European Patent has been processed in English on the first hand and German or French on the other hand.

In the first case, the applicant has to file the Hungarian translation of the claims prepared in PCT format, and has to pay the printing fee, which is calculated according to the page number of the printed European Patent Specification. Here the cover page does not count, and all pages should be included in which at least a fraction of the description can be found. This means that if in a printed page the claims start at any place other than the beginning of a page, that page should also be included when the number of pages is calculated. Furthermore, all pages that include the drawings must be added to the pages of the specification. The third item that should be taken into account at the count of the pages is the number of pages of the set of claims as filed in Hungarian.

In case the language of the European patent is German or French, the applicant can choose whether to file a full Hungarian translation or an English translation of the specification with Hungarian claims. The format of the specification is the standard PCT format, and the page number is the combined number of the pages of the specification and the claims together with the page number of the drawings.

The fee for the first five pages is EUR 81 and the fee for each further page is EUR 13.

For foreign applicants (outside the EU) a local representative has to be used and the use of a local representative for those in the EU but domiciled outside Hungary, the use of a local representative is recommended.

The process of validation starts with the filing of the Hungarian translation of the claims and the payment of the publication fee, and the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office provides a filing receipt after these steps. Then the Office publishes the fact of the validation, and from that date onwards there is an enforceable patent protection. At a still later date, the Office electronically publishes the patent which includes the submitted English description, the Hungarian claims and the drawings.

Time limits: the basic term for validating a European patent in Hungary is three months from the granting date. Against the payment of a late validation fee amounting to EUR 202, an extension of further three months can be obtained.