Spanish Law 24/2015, of July 24, on Patents

Following general guide of the main points approved in relation with this law in Spain:

– Given the number of affected provisions and the nature of the changes since the previous  Law 11/1986 on Patents, not just enough a simple partial reform as to date.

– In 1986 all patents were granted by national route. Today we are over 90 percent of patents with effects in Spain by the European Patent Office (EPO).

– The purpose of the law is simplify and streamline the protection of innovation through patents and increase legal security, establishing as the single system for granting patents that of  prior examination of novelty and inventive step , the gradual implementation was originally planned in the Law of 1986.

– The law in Spain distinguishes between patents, utility models and supplementary protection certificates for medicinal products and plant protection products.

– They are registered in the so-called Patent and Trademark Office at the request of natural or legal persons or entities of public law.

– The law in Spain defines patents: in all fields of technology, inventions that are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application. They may have biological material object.

– The right to the patent belongs to the inventor or his successors and transferable by all means recognized by law.

– It is presumed that the applicant is authorized to exercise the right to the patent.

The duration of the patent is for twenty years without extension, counted from the date of filing of the application.

– The main effect of the patent is the exclusive right of the holder to manufacture, use and sell it for commercial purposes.

– Rules on jurisdiction and procedural rules. The corresponding territorial jurisdiction belongs to the Mercantile Judge.

– Utility Models. The essential difference with the patent remains the need for models of a level lower than inventive patents.

-May be protected as utility models, in accordance with the provisions of this title, the industrially applicable inventions that being new and implying inventive activity, consist in giving an object or product configuration, structure or composition that results in practically significant advantage for use or manufacture.

-The protection of utility model shall confer on its owner the same rights as a patent.

– The duration of protection of utility models shall be ten years  non-renewable, counted from the date of filing of the application, and take effect from the publication of the mention of its grant in the “Official Bulletin of Industrial Property »

– European Patent.

Application in Spain of the Convention on the Grant of European Patents (EPC), done at Munich on October 5, 1973 and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), done at Washington on June 19, 1970.

The European patent applications after publication as set in Article 93 of the EPC, in Spain shall enjoy equivalent to that granted to the publication of national applications as of the date provisional protection where payment of the fee, be made available to the public by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office a Spanish translation of the claims.

As soon as the grant of the European patent has been mentioned in the “European Patent Bulletin”, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall record it in its Register, with the data mentioned in the European Patent Register.

The new Law on Patents will into effect on the 1st April 2017.

For any clarification concerning these issues, please do not hesitate to contact Arcos & Lamers Asociados.  We shall be pleased to answer any question or doubt you may have regarding this matter.

Do not hesitate to contact our law firm in Marbella for any accountancy, company, tax and legal inquiry.

Féliz Ruiz, Lawyer in Spain.