As of 1 June 2026, the Republic of Moldova officially became the 40th member state of the European Patent Organisation.
Although it has been possible to obtain patent protection in Moldova with a European Patent application since 2015, when a validation agreement between the European Patent Organisation and the Republic of Moldova came into force, validating a European Patent application in Moldova previously required the payment of an additional validation fee.
As a result of the accession of the Republic of Moldova to the European Patent Convention, for applications with a filing date on or after 1 June 2026, an additional validation fee is no longer required, and Moldova will automatically be designated as part of the fee for designating the EPO member states.
From a brief review of the statistics provided by the Moldovan State Agency on Intellectual Property (AGEPI), it appears that 403 granted European Patents owned by UK proprietors were validated in Moldova as of 1 June 2026. It will be interesting to see if the Republic of Moldova’s accession to the EPC has a noticeable effect on the number of European Patents being validated.
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