Patents and Utility Models

Patents and utility models are granted for technical inventions which were not known before and which stand out from the known by an “inventive step” or an “inventive activity”, i.e., which could not be found easily or by mere routine experiments.

Technical property rights give you, as the owner, the right to prohibit others from commercially applying the invention. This monopoly right for patents, which is limited to twenty years, is the state’s consideration for the inventor not keeping his innovation secret to himself but making it known to the public. This allows others to expand their knowledge and expertise much more quickly in order to arrive at further new inventions. It is important that an invention is registered with the Patent Office before the inventor reports it to the public.

While patents are only granted after an examination for patentability by the patent office, utility model registration takes place without such an examination. This has the advantage of faster registration and lower costs, but also the disadvantage of a greater risk of legal validity – this is usually only examined in an infringement dispute. In addition, the maximum term of utility models is only 10 years.

Since the firm was founded, we have advised large international companies, medium-sized enterprises, universities and research institutes as well as individual inventors in all fields of technology and the natural sciences.