Short survey about intellectual property rights
The patent designates the intellectual property right suitable for protecting technical inventions. It runs 20 years, from the day following the day of the application. The patent is an intellectual property right examined by the Patent- and Trademark Office whether necessary novelty and inventive step are given. It gives its owner the right to bar competitors from using the invention.
In contrast, the utility model, which also serves for protecting technical inventions, is an unexamined intellectual property right. By coming up with a very short term till protection is given, it is especially useful in branches of industry, where time is valuable because of speeding progress. But, as it is not examined by the Patent- and Trademark Office, it may ex post occur, that the subject-matter of its invention is not protectable. To avoid such nuisance, a profund research in advance of the application may minimize this risk. The duration of its protection adds up to 10 years.
The trademark serves for designating origin of goods and services. People are enabled to associate your business with the goods and services originating therefrom. Protectable by trademark are normally signs, words, names of persons, figures etc. Non-protectable are trademarks having no distinctiveness or which describe attributes of the goods or services. The protection period starts with the day of application, lasts for 10 years and can be extended (for 10 years each extension). The trademark is a protective right examined by the Patent- and Trademark Office.
The design patent (industrial design) is a protective right for the protection of designs and models. Those have to be new and to show peculiarity. Models in the sense of the above are two- or three-dimensional forms of appearance of a product or of a part therefrom. The design patent also is a protective right not examined by the Patent- and Trademark Office. ts protection lasts for a maximum of 25 years.
