26 The European Patent Organisation has signed co-operation and European patent extension agreements with a number of states that are not party to the EPC.

OJ 1994, 527; OJ 1995, 345; OJ 1996, 82; OJ 1997, 538; OJ 2002, 465; OJ 2003, 2 OJ 2004, 117 Guid. A-III, 13

As an applicant for a European patent you thus have a simple and cost-effective way of obtaining patent protection in such countries. If you file a request for extension and pay the extension fee, you can have European patent applications (direct and Euro-PCT filings) and patents extended to these countries, where they will then in principle have the same effect as national applications and patents and enjoy essentially the same protection as patents the EPO grants for EPC contracting states. At present you can request extension to Albania, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The extension system is largely the same as the EPC system operating in the contracting states, except that it is based not on direct application of the EPC but solely on national law modelled on the EPC. Hence it is subject to the national extension rules of the country concerned.