Found a Chinese, German, or other foreign patent that's worrying you? Enter the number below for a preliminary, disclaimer-backed check of whether it has a corresponding right in Croatia.
Patents are territorial — a right granted in one country has no legal effect in another unless a corresponding "family member" was also filed there, typically via the Paris Convention (12-month priority window) or the PCT international system (30–31 month national phase deadline). This tool checks publicly available patent family and legal status records to see whether your target country appears among a patent's known family members, and whether hard legal deadlines mean a new filing there is no longer possible.
This is a preliminary screening tool, not a Freedom-to-Operate opinion. It only checks the one specific right you enter — a full FTO analysis searches for rights you don't yet know to look for. For anything you plan to act on, a proper consultation is the right next step.
No. Patents only have legal effect in the specific countries where they (or a family member) were actually filed and granted. A patent existing in China says nothing on its own about Croatia — but the same underlying invention may also have been separately filed there.
When an inventor wants protection in multiple countries, they typically file a first ("priority") application, then extend to other countries within strict deadlines. All of these related filings — across every country — are collectively called a patent family.
Utility models (common in Germany, China, and elsewhere) protect similar subject matter to patents but have shorter maximum terms — typically 10 years, versus 20 years for a standard patent — and a faster, less rigorously examined registration process.