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.
Information on the deadlines for filing applications for transformation of European Union trademarks into Spanish national trademarks. See more
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.
El Bono 3 del Fondo para PYMEs 2025, que cubre la elaboración de Informes Tecnológicos de Patentes (ITP) y Búsquedas Retrospectivas se cerrará el lunes 10 de febrero de 2025 al cierre de la jornada laboral. Próximamente se informará sobre su reapertura. Puede consultar más información aquí.
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.
Respondemos todas aquellas dudas referentes a los diferentes procesos implicados en la propiedad industrial.
Under current patent granting systems in Spain, if you opt for the General Procedure, the State of the Art Report is not binding and is only used for helping to evaluate the patent.
If this SAR shows that the patent application is not novel or lacks inventive step, the applicant can:
- decide not to continue with the procedure and withdraw the application
- make the changes permitted by law in order to try to improve the patent application, or opt to continue the procedure via the preliminary examination route or the general granting procedure.
- Continue with the general granting procedure without making any changes. In this case, the risk is that, once the patent has been granted, a third party may try to cancel it because it does not comply with legal requirements.
It is possible to request a patent in other countries based on a utility model since the PRIORITY RIGHT (as set out in the Paris Union Convention) also applies to other countries, with the same 12 month duration as is used for patents.
You should also bear in mind that not all countries permit utility model protection and therefore the only way to obtain protection for an invention is through a patent.
In the case of the European patent, it is possible to obtain the priority right based on a prior utility model application in Spain.
Currently, only a small but significant number of countries and regions offer utility model protection. They are: Germany, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, ARIPO, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Slovakia, Spain, Estonia, Ethiopia, Russia, the Philippines, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mexico, OAPI, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, South Korea, the Republic of Moldavia, Tajikistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay and Uzbekistan.(http://www.wipo.int/sme/es/ip_business/utility_models/utility_models.htm)
Yes, it is possible to request to change a utility model application to an invention patent application up until the deadline for responding to opposition notices and, where applicable, objections formulated by the SPTO. If no one files a notice of opposition, the applicant may ask for their application to be changed up until the protection is granted.
If the change is accepted the submission date and priority will not change.
The following documentation must be submitted:
- completed application form (form 3101, available in the Utilities/Forms section of the SPTO web page, www.oepm.es) indicating that you are requesting a change of application type (it is important to state “invention patent” as application type, and “change to application type” as the type of request being made and to provide all the details of the original utility model)
- A summary of the invention of no more than 150 words.
Applicants are required to pay a “Change of application type” fee for this procedure, as detailed in the current list of Public Prices and Fees (available in the Utilities section/Public Fees and Prices of the SPTO web page).
The documentation can be presented at the same places indicated for submitting patents or utility models.
BOPI
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