The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, aware of the importance that Industrial Property plays when it comes to improving competitiveness among Spanish businesses, has adopted a series of initiatives so that Industrial Property becomes a strategic element of our businesses.

This series of initiatives is strengthened by the incorporation of measures aimed at facilitating and improving the filing of patents, trademarks and industrial designs, while eliminating, wherever possible, paperwork for users, by including reduced processing time, implementing means for the electronic filing of new applications, as well as providing users with the online means for paying corresponding fees and for receiving updates and notifications.

As of the beginning of this year, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO), within its strategic plan for adapting to Law 11/2007 for Electronic Access by Citizens to Public Services, made forms available online to the public for remaining procedures not specifically included in the Virtual Office.

It's important to point out that:

1.- The SPTO already has in place the following electronic procedures by means of the Virtual Office on its webpage, and they should be used for the following processes:

• Applications for trademark filing, individual trade name or by sets.
• Applications for renewing trademarks or individual trade name or by sets.
• E-application for inventions: patents and utility models.
• Application for filing industrial designs.
• Appeal filing.
• Electronic payment.
• Electronic payment files.
• Electronic queries.
• Digital access service to priority documents.

These electronic applications already represent most transactions involving the SPTO and a 15% reduction is applied to the corresponding fee all of these Applications. Information related to these procedures can be consulted in the SPTO File Status database.

2.- For forms that have been made available for issues and procedures that don't appear in the previous section, the following important matters shall be taken into account:

• They shouldn't be used in procedures for which there's a specific one available at the Virtual Office and appears in section 1.
• The use of these forms for filing applications for any of the industrial property modalities which point 1 makes reference to may not take effect as a standard filing, and therefore the filing date won't be considered valid for the purposes of registration priority.
• The electronic filing of these forms does not carry reduced fee.

Additionally, data related to these procedures can be consulted by means of the Electronic Filing Query. This also allows for accessing electronic applications presented in this manner, obtaining the electronic filing number and its entrance date. Access can also be provided to the Filing Receipt (PDF) and to annexes that were presented. In order to access the filing query you need to use the same digital certificate as the one used in the application.

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