Patents – requirement

Patents |  Portuguese Industrial Property Code

Patents – A patent constitutes a title that confers its owner exclusive right, involving an invention, as an intellectual operation from which results something new.

There are four requirements that the law establishes cumulatively for the granting of a patent:

  1. it has to be an invention;
  2. said invention has to be new;
  3. it has to imply inventive activity;
  4. it has to be prone to industrial application (article no. 55 of the Portuguese Industrial Property Code).

It’s not only the invention of new products that can be patented, but also the creation or the making of new means or processed, based on previous inventions, to obtain a merchantable product or a certain industrial outcome.

Unless otherwise provided for by exceptions in the Portuguese Industrial Property Code, the patent is granted to the one who presents first regularly the request with the enforceable elements.

The person who has been presenting regularly the patent request in any of the countries in EU or WTO or in any intergovernmental body with the authority to grant rights that have effects in Portugal, enjoys the priority right, as his/her successor, to present the request in Portugal.

The right to the patent belong to the inventor or his/her successors by any title.

The patent lasts 20 years counted from the day of the respective request.

The rights emerging from patents can be transmitted, total or partially, free of charge or costly.

The patents are total or partially void:

  1. if its object is susceptible to protection;
  2. if, in the respective grant, there was procedure infringements or necessary formalities for the grant of the right;
  3. if public policy rules are violated.

 Invalidity is invokable at all times by any interested party.

The following are not patentable:

  1. Findings such as scientific theories and mathematical methods;
  2. Materials or substances already existent in nature and nuclear materials;
  3. Aesthetic creations;
  4. Projects, principles and methods of the exercise of intellectual activities in gambling or in the domain of economical activities, as well as computer programmes, just as, without any contribution;
  5. Presentation of information,

And also…

Inventions whose commercial exploitation is against the law, public rules, public health and good practices.

patents

www.fa-legalonline.com | Patents | Portuguese Industrial Property Code