Why do you hire local agents when renewing patents?

Find out the reason for hiring local agents and in what jurisdictions it is required

Some jurisdictions require a local agent to represent patent owners.

These agents essentially represent you, the patent owners, in the patent ownership capacity with the Patent Office. When this representation requirement is present, we engage a local agent.

The countries that require a local agent are:

AE: United Arab Emirates
AL: Albania
AM: Armenia
AP: African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO)
AR: Argentina
AZ: Azerbaijan
BA: Bosnia and Herzegovina
BD: Bangladesh
BH: Bahrain
BR: Brazil
BY: Belarus
CD: Democratic Republic of the Congo
CF: Central African Republic
CL: Chile
CM: Cameroon
CN: China
CO: Colombia
CY: Cyprus
EA: Eurasian Patent Organisation (EAPO)
EG: Egypt
GC: Patent Office of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC)
GE: Georgia
HK: Hong Kong
ID: Indonesia
IN: India
JP: Japan
KE: Kenya
KG: Kyrgyzstan
KH: Cambodia
KR: Republic of Korea
KW: Kuwait
KZ: Kazakhstan
LB: Lebanon
LK: Sri Lanka
LS: Lesotho
MA: Morocco
MD: Republic of Moldova
ME: Montenegro
MK: North Macedonia
MO: Macao
MW: Malawi
MX: Mexico
MY: Malaysia
MZ: Mozambique
OA: African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI)
OM: Oman
PH: Philippines
PK: Pakistan
PL: Poland
QA: Qatar
RO: Romania
RS: Serbia
RU: Russia
SA: Saudi Arabia
SG: Singapore
SZ: Swaziland
TH: Thailand
TJ: Tajikistan
TM: Turkmenistan
TN: Tunisia
TR: Turkey
TW: Taiwan, Province of China
UA: Ukraine
VN: Viet Nam
ZA: South Africa

In many countries around the world, renewing patents with local agents is not required. We observe that many IP law firms, patent attorneys or IP renewal providers choose to hire local agents despite that it's not required. With our services, you can eliminate the local agent costs, as we digitalize most of our processes and we only use local agents in countries where it's absolutely necessary.

This list is created as of Mar 2023 - we strive to keep this updated as often as we can!

Why do you hire local agents when renewing patents?

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