As reported last month, the Italian Patent Office (PTO) had begun discussions with the European Patent Office (EPO) to define an agreement under which Italian patent applications would be searched by the EPO with respect to novelty and inventive step.

The PTO has now informed us that the agreement was formally reached on December 12 2007 and searches will start on July 1 2008. This means that from July 1 2008, Italian patent applications filed with the PTO will be subject to a search equivalent to the European extended search report (EESR) now issued by the EPO for new European patent applications.

The EESR comprises a prior art search with regards to novelty and inventive step summarized in a table, where the relevance of each prior art document is indicated by using the same definitions used in the European system (X for novelty destroying documents, Y for inventive step destroying documents, A for state of the art documents, etc). In addition, as is already the case for European applications, the search for Italian patent applications will also comprise a preliminary opinion on patentability issued by the EPO.

The applicant for the Italian patent will therefore have a complete prior art report and will be able to amend the claims so as to overcome the prior art thus obtaining a stronger national patent.

Micaela Modiano

Modiano & Associati
Via Meravigli 16
Milano I-20123
Italy
Tel: +39 02 85 907 777
Fax: +39 02 863 860
info@modiano.com
www.modiano.com