Region: Croatia

The Croatian Chamber of Commerce has launched a branding project to identify high-quality and authentic Croatian goods and services. The aim is to boost the competitiveness of local products on the global market.

21 October 2009

As part of Croatia's negotiations to join the European Union, the government must harmonise its legislative framework with EU law. The negotiations over Chapter VII on IP protection have been completed and changes to Croatian IP legislation have been made as a direct consequence of these negotiations.

22 July 2009

The Croatian legislation sets down border measures to protect IP rights. These measures are structured in accordance with global trends in IP protection and are designed to provide an environment that does not tolerate IP rights infringement in any form.

06 May 2009

The distribution of fees for the use of phonograms on radio and television is organised by the Association for the Protection, Collection and Distribution of Phonogram Producers’ Rights and is carried out according to the airplay of certain recordings. However, due to the ever-increasing use of the Internet, the need to regulate explicitly the use of authors’ works and their related rights in that environment has arisen.

25 February 2009

Rights for phonogram producers were first introduced into the Croatian legal system in 1999. However, the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2003 widened the scope of such rights to give phonogram producers the exclusive right to make their phonograms available to the public, among other things.

18 February 2009

The European Union has asked Croatia to postpone the implementation of the supplementary patent certificate provisions set out in the recently published Act on Amendments to the Patent Act. The request arose following some discrepancies between EU practice and that of the Croatian State Intellectual Property Office.

10 December 2008

Although Croatia is not an EU member state, the Market Competition Protection Agency considers EU practice when dealing with conflicts between legislation relating to trademark protection and regulations protecting competition. However, Croatia has yet to establish its own position on this issue.

10 September 2008

Croatian legislation regarding public health issues and their impact on exclusive patent rights is in line with the EU <i>acquis communautaire</i> and other international standards. For example, the research or experimental use exception is recognised under Article 63 of the Patent Law.

02 July 2008

A Zagreb court has denied a plaintiff's claims in a patent infringement case on the basis that the statute of limitations had expired. The court found that the plaintiff was aware of the alleged infringement as early as 1993, and that the statute of limitations ran from this date and not from every subsequent alleged infringement, as the plaintiff claimed.

07 May 2008

Croatia has now acceded to the revised European Patent Convention, the latest in a long line of initiatives designed to modernise the country’s patent regime. Next on the agenda is the introduction of an appeal system and initiatives to make the Board of Appeal an independent body. However, a lack of trained IP personnel could make this particularly challenging.

06 February 2008