As of June 1, 2026, the Republic of Moldova will become the 40th member state of the European Patent Organization (EPO).
Republic of Moldova will join the group of so-called designation states, which are automatically designated upon payment of a single designation fee due during the grant procedure.
Until now, Republic of Moldova was already in the European patent system as a validation state as the Republic of Moldova had signed a validation agreement with the EPO that entered into force on November 1, 2015. It was therefore possible to obtain protection in the Republic of Moldova through a European patent application via the validation system.
Under this system which is similar to extension system, it is necessary to pay, during the examination procedure and no later than the deadline for payment of the designation fee, a validation fee for each desired validation state, in order to subsequently have the opportunity to be able to validate the European patent in this validation state under the same conditions as a standard validation following grant in a designation state.
For European patent applications filed up to May 31, 2026, it will therefore be possible to obtain protection in the Republic of Moldova through the current system of validation states with payment of a validation fee, whereas as of June 1, 2026, the Republic of Moldova will be among the 40 designation states eligible for protection without payment of an additional validation fee during the grant procedure.
The territorial coverage provided (46 states) by the European patent system will therefore not be affected by the Republic of Moldova’s accession.
As of June 1, 2026, the European patent system will thus comprise 40 member/designation states, 1 extension state (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and 5 validation states (Cambodia, Georgia, Morocco, Tunisia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic).
Among the 40 member/designation states, 18 states are member of the UPC, allowing the filing of a request for Unitary effect to obtain a single Unitary patent for all these states.