Validate Your European Patent in Spain

If you want your European patent to be enforceable in Spain, you must do so by validating the European patents in Spain after grant. Spain is not part of the Unitary Patent system, so validation of the European patents in Spain is the only way to obtain patent protection in Spain when there is a granted European patent.

European Patent Protection: How It Works

A European patent granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) can provide protection in up to 39 EPC member states through a single centralised procedure.

However, once granted, a European patent does not automatically take effect in these countries. To obtain protection, you must either:

Validate the EP patent in the countries where you seek protection, and/or
Request a Unitary Patent (for participating states only).

What Is a Validation of a European Patent in Spain?

Validation is the legal process required for a granted European patent to take effect in Spain, which must be conducted within a specific time window.

Why Validation Is Mandatory in Spain

Spain is not part of the Unitary Patent system. This means that validating your European patent in Spain is the only way to secure enforceable patent rights in the country.

If your European patent is not validated in Spain, you have no patent protection in this market.

Requirements for Validating a European Patent in Spain

To validate a European patent in Spain, the following must be completed:

Payment of official Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO) fees. The fees are EUR 278.28 plus EUR 11.19 for each page of the translation over 22, including the pages of the figures regardless of whether they include translated text.
Preparation and submission of a full Spanish translation of the European patent specification, which does not include the abstract.
Appointment of a Spanish-based legal representative or a Spanish Patent and Trademark Attorney.

When the European patent has two or more co-applicants (i.e., patent proprietors), the percentages of ownership must also be indicated in the validation of the European patent in Spain. Consequently, since the EPO does not request such information for the European patent, the co-applicants must furnish this information when carrying out the validation. In absence of such indication, it is considered that the co-applicants have a same percentage of ownership. When the percentage of ownership registered at the SPTO is not correct, a correction may be requested.

Additionally, a VAT or some fiscal identification of the applicant or applicants in the validation of the European patent must also be indicated when carrying out the validation. This, again, is an information not requested by the EPO, therefore the applicant or applicants must be ready to furnish this information.

Due Dates and Term Extensions

The validation must be completed within 3 months of the publication of the grant of the European patent.

A 2-month term extension can be requested during the initial 3-month window. This extension does not require payment of any official fee, but it must be formally approved by the SPTO before the original deadline expires, thus it must be approved within the 3-month window.

What Happens If the Due Date Is Missed?

If validation is not completed in time, the patent will not take effect in Spain, and protection may be lost.

The only means of redress are a re-establishment of rights, which may not be granted by the SPTO.

Why the Spanish Translation Is Critical

The scope of protection in Spain is defined by the Spanish translation, not the original text of the European patent as granted. Errors can limit rights, expose the invention, and cannot fully restore protection retroactively.

A mistranslation can:

Narrow or alter the scope of your patent rights.
Expose your invention to exploitation by third parties.
Require costly corrections that do not retroactively restore lost rights.
Allow competitors to continue using your invention if they relied on the incorrect translation.

In short, a poor translation can permanently weaken your patent protection in Spain.

Validation in Spain vs Unitary Patent

Applicants often combine a Unitary Patent with validation in Spain because, if a Unitary Patent is being sought to extend the protection of the European patent in all 18 participating states, a Spanish translation may be filed with the European Patent Office and also be used for validation in Spain.

When applying for a Unitary Patent, it is necessary to submit to the EPO a translation of the granted European patent into the national language of one of the EPC member states, such as Spain. Therefore, if the patent is translated into Spanish for the Unitary Patent or for validation in Spain, the same translation can also be used for the other procedure.

According to the Unitary Patent statistics provided by the EPO, a Spanish translation is filed in more than 30% of Unitary Patent requests. Given that the Spanish market is potentially attractive for most inventions, translating into Spanish is advisable to reduce the costs of a potential validation in Spain.

After Validation of the European Patent In Spain

Publication of the Spanish Patent

After filing the validation, if the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office does not raise any objections, the validation is published in the Spanish Intellectual Property Bulletin (BOPI). The protection conferred by the validation becomes effective from the date of publication in the BOPI.

Unlike some other National Patent Offices, the SPTO also publishes the validation as a Spanish patent with the translation of the European patent into Spanish. The kind code of such publications is T3, which corresponds to the translation of the European patent as published. Publications with kind code T8 may also be found when correction of data of the European patent are made, whereas publications with kind code T9 may also be found when the translation into Spanish has been corrected, which is especially relevant as previously indicated to establish the different scopes of protection due to different translations (erroneous and corrected) and the dates when they came into effect.

Maintenance of the Spanish Patent

To keep the patent protection of the European patent in Spain valid for several years, up to the regular 20 years of a patent, maintenance fees (i.e., renewal fees) must be paid every year after validation of the European patent. When the invention protected in the validation of the European patent relates to a pharmaceutical product or a plant protection product, an additional 5-year patent protection term may be requested through a Supplementary Protection Certificate, which may be requested in Spain, that offsets the loss of patent protection due to compulsory testing and clinical trials that such products typically require prior to obtaining regulatory marketing approval.

The first maintenance fee to be paid corresponds to the maintenace fee of the first anniversary not paid for the European patent at the EPO. For example, if maintenance fees for up to the fourth anniversary have been paid at the EPO when the European patent had been granted, the maintenance fee for the fifth anniversary will have to be paid at the SPTO.

Maintenance fees in Spain start at EUR 18.85 (for the third anniversary) and increase up to EUR EUR 499.85 (for each of the seventeenth anniversary up to the twentieth anniversary).

Each maintenance fee in Spain must be paid in the three months following the month of the anniversary date (i.e., filing date) of the European patent. For example, if the European patent was filed on January 10, the maintenance fee of the validation of the European patent in Spain must be paid between February 1 and April 30.

A 6-month grace period after non-payment of a maintenance fee is available, with a 25% surcharge for the first 3-month, and a 50% surcharge for the second 3-month period. In the previous example, that means that a maintenance fee may be paid up until October 31 of the concerned year with a 50% surcharge. And beyond the 6-month grace period, there is an additional 6-month period for payment of a maintenance fee, in which case, in addition to the 50% surcharge, a regularization fee must also be paid, which ranges between EUR 116.15 and EUR 476.90 depending on the maintenance fee that has been missed.

Validate Your European Patent in Spain with Elion

At Elion, we handle the full validation process on your behalf:

Spanish translations are carried out by specialised patent translators.
Every translation is reviewed by our European Patent Attorneys with expertise in the technical field of your invention. Revision by the attorney is included at no extra cost.
The entire validation is managed efficiently and cost-effectively.
We act as your professional representative before the SPTO.
We will request the extension of time if the validation is sent with little time for preparing a proper translation.

Our process ensures accuracy, compliance, and the strongest possible protection for your patent in Spain.