– Law on Industrial Property, in force since February 23, 2009.
– Regulation on Patent, in force since July 24, 2009.

– The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (Apostille), since January 24, 1965.
– Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, Stockholm Act, since September 8, 1991.
– Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), since September 8, 1991.
– Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), since August 10, 1995.
– Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure, since August 30, 2002.
– WTO’s TRIPS Agreement, since April 4, 2003.
– Strasbourg Agreement Concerning the International Patent Classification, since May 30, 2003.
– European Patent Convention (EPC), since January 1, 2009.
– Patent Law Treaty, since April 22, 2010.
– London Agreement on the Application of Article 65 EPC, in force since February 1, 2012.

Applicant: the inventor or the legal successor.

Foreigners: must appoint a local agent in North Macedonia.

Protection of foreigners: they enjoy the same rights as Macedonian nationals.

Naming of inventor(s): inventors must be named in the application; if he does not wish to appear on the document, he must sign an appropriate declaration.

Kinds of protection: patents, provisional patents, patents of addition.

Patentability: a patent is granted for an invention which is new, which is a result of creative work, which has an inventive level and is industrially applicable.

Exceptions to protection: discoveries, scientific theories, mathematical methods, computer programs, rules, schemes, methods and processes for performing mental acts; inventions, the publication or use of which is contrary to law or morality; inventions related to new animal species and plant varieties and essentially biological processes for production of animals or plants, apart from inventions related to microbiological processes and products from such processes; inventions of surgical or diagnostic methods or methods of treatment directly applied to the human or animal body, with the exception of inventions concerning the use of substances (chemical or biochemical products) in any of the above methods.

Novelty: the claimed invention should not have been made available to the public by publication, exhibition, demonstration or use in a way obvious to persons skilled in art.

Novelty grace period (for the inventor or applicant): twelve months.

Unity of the invention: a patent application may concern plurality of inventions, provided that they form a single inventive concept.

Priorities: twelve months according to the Paris Convention; official exhibition (within ninety days following the closing date of the exhibition).

Patents of addition: may be filed during the entire period of validity of the basic patent, but cannot last longer than the basic patent.

Secret patents: are not published, responsibility of the Ministry of Defense.

Territory covered: the Republic of North Macedonia.

Filing requirements for an application (to be sent to resident agent):
1. Power of attorney (no legalization);
2. Specification and abstract (to be translated);
3. 3 sets of formal drawings (A4);
4. Priority document (if claimed), to be filed within three months of the filing date.

Note: the applicant should state in the patent application whether the procedure of examination will be carried out (a) as a substantive examination in one of the institutions which by rule are national and international Offices and which on the basis of PCT have a status of authorized institutions for international search; (b) as a substantive examination in some of the institutions with which a special agreement is signed for the purpose of searching and substantive examination; or (c) as examination carried out in the Macedonian State Office of Industrial Property. If the applicant has failed to proceed in accordance with above, he shall be bound to make a statement within twelve months after the date specified as the filing date of the application to the Office.

Electronic filing: available since October 2023.

Electronic signatures: accepted for the POA.

For a change of name:
1. An official document/extract issued by the Companies Register or other relevant institution (must be in original or a certified copy and notarized);
2. Power of attorney, simply signed.

For a change of address:
1. Power of attorney, simply signed.

PCT applications: time limit for entering national phase under both Chapter I and Chapter II: 31 months. Note: the Office accepts the filing of documents by means of telecommunication, i.e. by facsimile machine. The original of the document must be furnished within fourteen days from the date of the transmission, if the transmitted document is the international application or a replacement sheet containing corrections or amendments of the international application.

Extension of European patents: the extension agreement between North Macedonia and the European Patent Organization terminated with the entry into force of the EPC in North Macedonia on January 1, 2009. It is therefore no longer possible to extend European patent applications and patents to North Macedonia. The extension system will, however, continue to apply to all European and international applications filed prior to January 1, 2009, as well as to all European patents granted in respect of such applications. Applicants for European patent applications filed on or after January 1, 2009 can designate North Macedonia in their EP applications and obtain Macedonian patents through a single process at the European Patent Office.

Examination: only formal examination and as to patentability.

Transformation of patent application into a design application (and vice versa): in accordance with the Law of January 1, 2004, it is no longer possible.

Amendments to the application: no essential changes or broadening of the scope of the protection are accepted. The application may be amended and documents completed at the IP Office request.

Request for substantive examination: the patent applicant who has stated in the patent application about the procedure of examination should submit a request for substantive examination in one of the examining institutions two years at the latest from the date of submitting the patent application to the Office. The applicant should submit a copy of the submitted request to the Office and, within a period of six months from the date on which he has received the evidence of the examination, he will be bound to submit to the Office the evidence and the translation of the evidence into Macedonian language. In case the patent applicant fails to proceed in compliance with the above, the Office will reject the application. On the basis of the presented evidence, the Office will determine to what extent the contents and scope of the patent claims regarding the relevant invention meet the conditions of the Law and will issue a decision that the invention meets all the conditions or a decision that the invention only partially meets the conditions, which provides limited further validity of the patent claim or patent claims in the scope that fulfills the conditions.

Disputes about authorship and ownership: settled by the courts.

Publication: the application data from the decision for grant of a patent shall be published in the Official Gazette of the Office within ninety days from the date of the decision of the grant thereof.

Granting: the data from the decision of grant is entered into the Patent Register on the day of issuing the decision and published in the Official Gazette within ninety days.

Opposition: not provided for.

Delivery of document: the registration certificate is issued in paper format.

Duration – extension: twenty years from the filing date when the procedure of examination is carried out as a substantive examination or ten years from the filing date when the procedure of examination is carried out in the Macedonian State Office of Industrial Property. It is possible to extend a patent duration to over twenty years, i.e. for another five-year period by a Supplementary Protection Certificate in the case where a patent has been granted for a medicinal product, a plant protection product or a process through which they are produced, the placing on the market of which requires prior marketing authorization of the competent State authority, for a time period equal to the period which elapsed between the filing date of a patent application and the date of the first marketing authorization to place the medicinal or the plant protection product on the market. 

Paediatric extension: not provided for. 

Annuities: are due for the third year and each subsequent year on the anniversary of the filing date.

Annuity grace period: three months with 25% fine; further six months with 100% fine.

Marking of patented goods: not compulsory.

Assignment: must be in written form and registered at the IP Office.

Licenses: exclusive or non-exclusive; must be registered at the IP Office.

Compulsory license: if the patent holder does not use the invention protected by a patent or uses it in a scope, which is insufficient to the needs of the national market, and refuses to enter into a license agreement or imposes provisions for entering into contract, which are against the market conditions, the right to use the invention by a compulsory license may be assigned to another person, with the obligation to pay a fee to the patent holder. A compulsory license may also be issued if the utilization of the invention protected by a patent is necessary due to emergency situations in the country, for the protection of public interest in the areas of health, food and the environment, if it is of particular interest to a certain industrial field, or if it is necessary for implementing the judicial and administrative procedure related to the protection of competition.

Right to prior user: right to a patent has no effect against other persons who, at the time of application, have already used or made the necessary arrangements for using it on the territory of North Macedonia.

Infringement: petitions against infringement of patent rights should be filed within five years after the infringement or within three years from the date when the owner found out that the infringement was made. The court may interrupt the procedure until the IP Office has issued a decision regarding the patentability examination procedure.

Nullification: a nullification action may be instituted before the court by submitting evidence that, at the filing date, the application did not fulfill the conditions for patent protection at any time of the validity of the patent.

The grant of a European patent in which North Macedonia is designated confers the same rights as the grant of a national patent. A Macedonian translation of the claims only and the drawings (if the application includes drawings) must be filed within a non-extendible term of three months after the date on which the mention of the grant of the European patent is published in the European Patent Bulletin. The European patent is then entered into the Register of the State Office of Industrial Property and published in the Official Gazette.

Time limit for entering EP regional phase: 31 months under both Chapters I and II.  European patent validation requirements: (a) appointment of a national representative is required; (b) the minimum time period for paying renewal fees due at validation is two months.

If a European patent and a national patent have the same date of submission, or if a right to priority has been claimed and that the same date has been acknowledged to the same person or to his legal successor, the national patent shall not have legal effect to the extent in which the same invention is covered by the European patent, counted from the date on which the deadline for entering an objection has expired, and an objection has not been filed, or from the date on which in a complaint procedure a final decision has been taken that the European patent remains into effect.