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Intellectual Property in Slovakia

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Intellectual Property, or IP, as it is colloquially called, is characterised as legal protection for commercially precious products of human intellect. There are, generally, three forms of IP: patents, copyrights and trademarks. Although these articles are similar many some ways, they each have individual idiosyncrasies and definitions which make them unique. Perhaps most importantly, there is no physicality to intellectual property. If effectively safeguards an intangible idea or process.

Patent

Generally speaking, patents are granted to inventors for inventions. These can include anything from machinery, tools, processes, chemicals, biotechnology, software, etc.

To qualify for a patent, an inventor must invariably create something that is:

• Of patentable matter
• Unique to patentee
• Merited and can be utilised
• Innovative
• Non-obvious

Under a patent, the patentee reserves the right stop or limit others from utilising and trading the invention. Without explicit permission from the patentee, persons using the patent in any of these ways are infringing, and could be subjected to legal action.

Duration of a patent is twenty years from the date of the patent application. As of application date, the applicant acquires the priority right for the protection of their invention. The owner of the patent is obliged to pay administrative annual fees for maintenance of the patent. Patents are valid for a renewable period of 10 years.

Trademarks

Trademarks are used to denote epithets, logos, symbols, slogans, etc, that are individual to a business and product. Fundamentally, the things that distinguish your product or service from a competitor's. Businesses understandably go to endless lengths to have control over their trademarks. Therefore, any persons found infringing upon them through unlawful use could be subject to legal action.

Famous examples of trademarks are Coca Cola and McDonald's.

An applicant registers with the Trademark Register. From the date of the filing of the application, the applicant acquires a priority right to the trademark.The trademark protection is valid for 10 years. The protection may be extended or renewed upon request for successive ten year periods.

Copyright

Copyright gives someone to sell and reproduce a protected product, which is invariably printed work. Things like books, magazines, websites, photographs, music, film and art are common examples of copyrighted work. Copyright denotes five rights of the author, artist, etc: reproduction, distribution, adaptation, performance and display. Use of such materials or works without the explicit permission of the copyright holder is classed as infringement, and persons doing so could be subject to legal action.

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