Applications for national patents, trademarks and designs in 2011

Applications for national patents, that is, those submitted to the OEPM, dropped slightly in number last year. In 2011, 3,527 applications were submitted in comparison with 3,669 in 2010, a reduction of 4%.

Regarding ‘utility models’, another type of protection for inventions, the drop was smaller (1.7%) from 2,629 in 2010 to 2,585 in 2011.

The other IP methods saw positive trends, especially ‘trade names’ which increased by 10% (from 4,602 to 5,062 in 2011), followed by ‘industrial designs’ with 6.6% (from 1,662, to 1,772 in 2011).

Applications for ‘product and service trademarks’ remained at practically the same level as last year, with a slight rise of 1.7% (from 43,364 to 44,116 in 2011).

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