All patents or patent applications relating to Sweden can be pledged. The pledge agreement itself applies between the parties, but for the pledge to achieve third-party protection, you must request to have it registered with PRV. The only exception is if you have a European patent with unitary effect.

The patent applications and patents that can be pledged in Sweden through registration with PRV are:

• Swedish patent and European patent that is valid in Sweden
• Swedish patent application
• European patent application where PRV has published a translation of the patent claims
• PCT application that has been carried out in Sweden

This is how it works

We record your agreement after receiving a request for registration comprising:

• Application- /publication number of the patent or patent application to which the note relates
• a notarized copy of the pledge agreement showing the name and address of the parties as well as the date of the pledge agreement
• clear information in the agreement about what the pledge refers to and which rights have been pledged

The pledge agreement must be written in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish or English. In other cases, PRV may demand that the person requesting the record submit a Swedish translation of the document.

The request to record a pledging must be signed by the pledgor or the pledgee, or an authorized representative.

You must also pay a registration fee.

After registration, we send a confirmation to the person who submitted the request.

Pledge of European patents 

PRV does not maintain a register of European patents with unitary effect, nor do we handle pledges relating to European patents with unitary effect. These are recorded by the European Patent Office, EPO.

A pledge registration of a European patent application will also apply to the granted patent, but only if this is validated here. Pledges with provisional protection that have been registered with the PRV but where the patent later gains  unitary effect must be recorded at the EPO to have legal effect in Sweden in terms of third-party protection.