Filing an Application and its Publication

The details on how to draw particular elements of an application may be found in the Patent Act and the Patent Regulations.

Upon receipt of an application, the Office examines whether the prescribed elements of the application are dully filed and, if the application is correct, accords the filing date of the application, on the basis of which the applicant acquires the priority right, i.e. international priority.

The priority right means that if two inventors file an application for the same invention, the patent will be granted to the applicant who first files the application, provided that it complies with all the necessary requirements.

The application is entered in the register, and the checking of payment of the fees is made. After accordance of the filing date of the application, the applicant may request, if necessary and subject to payment of the corresponding charges, a certificate of the right of priority.

After accordance of the filing date, the Office invites the applicant to submit and pay the costs of the request for a search of the state of the art. If he fails to do so in the prescribed time limit, the application is rejected. The applicant may also request an optional written opinion on patentability.

The patent application shall be published in the Croatian Intellectual Property Gazette (the Gazette) upon expiry of 18 months from the date of filing the application, i.e. from the date of the granted right of priority, along with a search report. If for some reason it was not possible to produce a search report within that period, it will be published later. A written opinion on patentability is not published.

At a request of the applicant and subject to payment of the costs of such request, the application may be published even earlier, but not before expiration of 3 months as from the date of its filing with the Office. The published patent application becomes available to the public, whereby it forms part of the state of the art, and the file may be inspected by any interested person.

A period of 6 months runs from the date of publication of the search report; within this period, the applicant must file a request for substantive examination if he wants to continue the patent granting procedure.

If the request has not been filed within the prescribed time limit, and if the corresponding fees have not been paid, the Office will reject the patent application.