Knowing of precise expiration date of patent is important for all parties of pharmaceutical industry allowing to keep environment competitive and healthy.

Innovation companies have to plan their business activity guided by date of patent expiration.

Manufacturers, exporters and importers have to know exact date of beginning of their business activity, whereas consumers and government interested in launching generic copies of new pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals.

Recently Ukraine adopted changes to Patent Law aligning process of patent expiration to international practice with adjusting term of patent extension and pediatric use.

Bragarnyk & Partners specialists have developed IP monitoring system, performs intellectual property objects monitoring in Ukraine for pharmaceutics, veterinary medicine, plant protection products and biotechnology.

The system allows identification possible violations of the intellectual property rights on the early stage of application on medicine product registration, and to hold an ongoing monitoring of our clients' intellectual property rights. Clients of Bragarnyk & Partners are able to monitor compliance of their intellectual property rights and to detect violations in an effective and prompt way. It is also possible with the System to efficiently evaluate patent clearance of the new products on the stage of preparation of the new products for introduction to the market and also to define exact date of the "secure launch" for generic products.

In general, patents can be kept in force 20 years from the filing date. Special kinds of patents protecting pharmaceuticals or agrochemicals, can be extended for term of 5 years (SPC). Pediatric extension gives additional 6 months of validity of SPC. Annuity fee for validity of SPC can be paid annually only. Expiration of pharmaceutical and agrochemical patents must be monitored every year.