The Ufficio Italiano Brevetti e Marchi (UIBM), the Italian Patent and Trademark Office, enforces the intellectual property laws set by the Italian government and represents the point of contact for an inventor residing in Italy. For inventions from outside Italy, the Patent Cooperation Treaty, provides an unified procedure for several countries, welcomes the patent application and routes it to the UIBM.
Laws
Under Italian patent law, an inventor can patent a product idea that has never been thought of before or a new and non-obvious improvement to something or a process that already exists. One important aspect to the law requires the invention be useful and have some industrial application.
Rights
An inventor with an Italian patent can block others from selling, manufacturing and using the inventive concepts within the territorial boundaries of Italy for a period of 20 years. The patent office clocks the start from the date the inventor filed the patent application, not from the time the inventor developed the idea, according to the UIBM.
Exclusions
The UIBM declines patenting aspects of nature unless the outcomes result from human intervention. It excludes inventions related to creating new animal breeds or new plants. In contrast, the UIBM welcomes purified biological materials extracted from their environment through a technical process.
