SPTO Novelties

All you have to know

As usual, here are the monthly SPTO Novelties to be updated of our Office news.

Firstly, we would like to highlight the recent publication of two new Technology Alerts, with them the total number of Alerts is twenty-five, their aim is to offer daily updated information on patents related to a particular technical topic published worldwide. The new Technology Alert on Low-Temperature Solar Energy, pertaining to the Energy and Sustainability category and published by the SPTO in cooperation with SOLPLAT, emphasizes the role of this kind of technologies on greenhouse gases emission reduction using a plentiful source at the Spanish geography. This alert will help to spread the inventions on this field and mobilize the innovative potential of the Spanish industrial and technological sector to accomplish the signed international agreements as well as contribute to the environment preservation. The new Technology Alert on Road Safety, pertaining to the Various category and published by the SPTO in cooperation with PTCarretera, responds to a first-order need and its goal is to achieve the ‘vision 0’ that searches to reduce the possibility of accident and the injuries related to it. One of the essential points of this approach is the creation of the ‘forgiving roads’.

Secondly, we would like to present two new reports that have been recently published by the SPTO Statistics and Studies Service. The report ‘Technologies on the Automotive sector 2008-2017’ shows the evolutionary trends on the inventions related to the automotive sector that have been published in Spain as patents or utility models. Interesting conclusions that reflect the reality of our roads can be drawn from this study, such as the arrival of new business models based on ‘car-sharing’ of electric or plug-in hybrid cars or the huge interest that technologies on autonomous cars, currently in experimentation stage, are awakening. The report ‘Technologies on climate change mitigation’ analyses the evolutionary trends on this kind of technologies and shows the contribution that inventions on this field have on the spreading of qualified technical information in relation to the energy field. Furthermore, it emphasizes the value that Industrial Property rights have as indicators of the evolutionary trends on the so-called ‘clean energies’.

Thirdly, we are pleased to announce that from November 20th 2018 the Institutional Agenda of the SPTO Director can be consulted from our website (Section About the SPTO - Director Agenda) as part of our commitment to the transparency.

Lastly, we would like to inform about the important discounts on taxes that Latin-American users have for the international PCT application when they select the SPTO as the International Search Authority. All the details can be consulted at our website, but for illustrative purposes we present the following ones:

• International Phase:
  - International Search at the SPTO: a 75% discount on the fee (the amount goes from 1775€ to 443.75€)
  - International Preliminary Examination at the SPTO: a 75 % discount on the fee (from 583.65€ to 145.91€)
• Regional Phase Euro-PCT:
  - European Search: a 1100€ discount on the fee