New Statute of the SPTO

New Statute of the SPTO

After more than 27 years, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) has a new Statute that will enable it to face future challenges more effectively, while respecting its legally established institutional mission.

On one hand, the new Statute adapts the structure of the OEPM to the requirements for public bodies set out in Law 40/2015 of October 1 on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector.

On the other hand, from a functional perspective, it systematizes, develops, and specifies the purposes and functions attributed to the OEPM by Law 17/1975, of May 2.

These are some of the most notable changes introduced by the new regulation:

• The Governing Council and the Presidency are defined as governing bodies.

• As before, the Presidency corresponds to the head of the Undersecretariat of the Ministry to which it is attached, which since 2001 has been the Ministry with responsibility for industry.

• A Governing Council is created, comprising the Ministries involved in the field of innovation and industrial property, as well as the CSIC. This establishes a governance formula that takes into account the cross-cutting nature of industrial property in other public policies.

• The Management of the SPTO is configured as the executive body of the organization, which will oversee a Cabinet of the Director General and, as management bodies, the Departments, some of whose names have been updated. Specifically, the Information Technology Division becomes the Department of Information Technology and Digital Transformation. For its part, the Department of Patents, Designs, and Technological Information incorporates in its name a reference to the powers already attributed to it in the field of designs.

• The new wording details the actions derived from the agency's registration function, recognizes the importance of its international activity, and consolidates the importance of disseminating and promoting industrial property to society in general and to companies and SMEs in particular. It also recognizes the OEPM's status as the competent national authority in the national phase for the recently created Geographical Indications for Handicraft and Industrial Products.

• The OEPM faculties now include participation in commercial companies and other entities.

Finally, it should be noted that this Royal Decree also amends the Regulations of the Patent Law. This is a very limited amendment, relating to the content of the publication in the BOPI of different acts in the patent granting procedures. With this, the OEPM aligns itself with the practice of bodies such as the European Patent Office (EPO), in order to comply with publicity and transparency obligations more effectively and efficiently in the use of public resources.

In short, the new Statute provides an updated and more solid basis for responding to the challenges facing the agency, in a context of growing importance of innovation and legal protection of intangible assets for the Spanish economy.

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