If you want to distinguish your goods, services or both from those of another company, you may need a trademark or trade name. Find out what they are, what their registration procedure is and what it involves.
Información sobre los plazos de presentación de solicitudes de transformación de marcas de la Unión Europea en marca nacional española. Más información
If you have a new device, product or procedure that solves a technical problem or has a practical advantage, there are different ways to protect it in Spain and other countries. Find out how.
Does your innovation lie in the aesthetics, ornamentation or appearance of your product? Protect it through industrial design. Find out what rights registration confers and how to proceed.
Patents published worldwide are a valuable source of scientific, technical and commercial information.
reembolso del 75% del coste de Búsquedas e Informes Tecnológicos de Patentes. Más información*
If you are an entrepreneur or a company and you want to boost and improve the profitability of your business by adequately protecting the intangible assets of your organisation, in this space you will find what you need.
The difference between both systems consists of patents always offering better security: any person who uses this invention without being authorised can be sued, irrespective of whether or not they were aware of the existence of this patent.In contrast, the industrial secret offers a weaker protection restricted to demanding financial compensation from any person who is obliged to respect that secret (basically employees) and who discloses or uses it in for their own benefit or for the benefit of third parties.In other words, the industrial secret only protects against espionage.
Twenty years from the submission date for patents and ten years for utility models. Only in the case of patents for pharmaceutical and phytosanitary products can what is known as a Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) be applied for, which extends the protection given for a maximum period of five years once the patent has expired.
There are basically two: to pay the annual fees and make use of the invention.
Once the patent has been granted, applicants are required to pay the annual fee to maintain the rights, as detailed in the current list of Public Fees and Prices (available in the Utilities section/Public Fees and Prices of the SPTO web page). If they do not do this in the correct manner by the deadline, the patent will expire and the object protected by said patent will become part of the public domain.
Furthermore, the holder also has the duty to exploit the patent, either themselves or via a person authorised by them using an exploitation licence.
The holder can benefit from a 50% discount on the above mentioned annual fees if they send a written declaration to the SPTO offering licences affording full rights.
Patents are granted to new inventions that imply inventive step and have industrial applicability.
The invention must be technical in character or nature, that is, it must constitute a solution to a technical problem.
In addition, it must be possible for an expert in the field to execute it in practice and, therefore, a sufficiently clear and complete description should be provided on the application form.
An invention could be a product (substance or composition), a piece of apparatus (device or system), a procedure (method) or a use (application), provided it meets the requirements for patentability.
In the Guidelines for the Examination of Patent Applications, available in the Inventions section of the SPTO web page, you will find more information on the requirements for patentability and exceptions to this.
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