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Patenting in Italy |
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UTILITY MODELS
The requirements for registering italian utility models are basically the same as for standard patents for inventions. Contrary to standard patents, the term of utility models is 10 years.
According to the italian law, new models are eligible for registration if they are capable of conferring a particular efficiency or ease of application or usefulness to machines or parts thereof, instruments, tools or articles of general use such as new models consisting of peculiar conformations, arrangements, configurations or combinations of parts.
This definition shows that to be eligible for registration as utility model a good to be so registered must have a material structure, and therefore no manufacturing process or invention based on functional elements can be protected as a utility model.
The purpose of the goods to be protected by an utility model must be to the benefit of their user (not of their manufacturer or the person applying them), whereby the difference between an invention or a utility model is highlighted by the italian law as follows: “whenever the idea of a solution changes or improves the function or typical technical effect of an obiect, there is an invention, whereas when the improvements or changes concern the auxiliary steps and operations required to obtain the function or typical technical effect or are linked to the function, there is a utility model”.
Therefore, if the novelty consists only of the individual parts or of their structural composition, when such composition leads to a new system of combination of the parts, we are in the field of utility models. This means that where the new structural combinations or new structural arrangements do not alter the primary function of the device, object or machine, such combinations or arrangements should be protected with an utility model provided that a technical problem is overcome.
But if the novelty consists only in the use of a new material, there will be no protection in general, just as there is no protection where there is just a simple combination of parts without any solution of a technical problem and without such parts modifying their functions.
Instead, if the new combination or arrangement leads to an improvement or change of the primary function or typical technical effect, then a new functional combination of the parts is brought about. In such a case, the object thus embodied, whether it is a device or a machine, can be protected for this new functional combination as an invention.
Moreover, it is interesting to notice that Italian Patent Law, as amended in 1987, states that:
“during examination in the Patent Office it is possible to convert an application for a patent for an invention into an application for registration of an utility model or, if necessary requirements exist, of an ornamental design or model, or viceversa (Art. 9)”.
After the grant of a patent, a Judge may declare a patent for an invention as nul and void but may also state its validity as utility model or as an ornamental model or design.
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