NL Patent Office

Requirements

In order to be eligible for a patent in Europe, you must have devised a technical invention that complies with three material conditions. A technical invention is understood to mean a product or operating procedure in any technological field.

The material conditions are:

• Novelty
  The product or process may not have been made public anywhere in the world before the date of submitting the patent application, not even through the activities of the inventor himself (e.g. by means of a company brochure or a presentation at a trade fair).
  
  
• Inventive step
  The invention may not be obvious to a professional.
  
  
• Industrial application
  The invention must relate to a technically demonstrable functioning product or production process.

Services, natural scientific theories, calculation methods, undeveloped ideas and aesthetic designs cannot be protected by patent. Other forms of protection can be used for these, such as copyright, design and model rights or trademark rights.

Examination
In contrast to a patent applied for in the Netherlands, an application for a European patent is always examined against the requirements of novelty, the inventive step and industrial application.