EPO - Montenegro and the European Patent Office signed extension agreement

The European Patent Organisation (EPO) and Montenegro have signed an agreement on the extension of European patents to Montenegro.
The Agreement will enter into force later this year, depending on a mutual exchange of notes between the Government of Montenegro and the EPO.
Once the agreement enters into force, the number of countries for which one can seek patent protection for an invention through a single European patent application will rise to 39 countries.
Up to date, the 35 member countries include all 27 EU member states plus Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey. Furthermore, the Organisation has extension agreements with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia.

WIPO - International patent filing statistics in 2008

The World Intellectual Property Organization recently published the statistic of international patent filing in 2008.
Filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) grew by 2.4% in 2008. Despite the fact that this is the highest number of applications received in a single year, the increase was modest in comparison with the three previous years (9.3%). This might be seen as an effect of the global economic slowdown.
The largest number of applications came from companies from the United States (32.7%), followed by Japan (17.5%) and Germany (11.3%). It is worth mentioning that the highest grow rates in 2008 belong to South Korea, China and Sweden.