Malta Patents
Malta patents are registered in the Malta Patent Register administered
by the Comptroller of Industrial Property in accordance with the Malta Patents and Designs Act. Moreover, Malta has acceded to the
European Patent Convention (EPC) and the revised Convention (EPC 2000).
As a result, European Patent applications may now be filed either with
the Malta office responsible for granting patentsor with the
European Patent Office in Munich.
Patents protect
inventions. Patent licencing is often seen as a process which confers a
20 year monopoly on the patentee. As a result, the owner of the patent
has the right to prevent third parties from making, offering, putting
for sale and licensing the product incorporating the subject matter of
the patent.
A Patentable invention must be
:
- Novel: The invention must not be previously available to the public;
- Inventive: Not obvious to a person skilled in the art covered by the invention;
- Industrially applicable: can be used in industry;
- relate to "patentable subject matter" (for instance, under Maltese law, discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical are not treated as patentable)
SEE ALSO: MALTA TAX EXEMPTION OF PATENTS’ ROYALTIES
SERVICES OFFERED
- MALTA PATENT
SEARCH
ACS offers its clients the possibility of undergoing Malta Patent searches in the Malta Patents Register. Malta patent searches may be done for various reasons. For instance a patent search is normally done before a patent application is filled in to determine whether the given invention is patentable or not (Patentability Search). Moreover, patent searches may also be made in the process of determining whether a given product may be manufactured without infringing existing patents (Infringement or clearance Search).
. - CREATION OF A PATENT HOLDING COMPANY
Patent income may be exempt from income tax in Malta provided the correct procedure is used. The creation of a Patent holding company may be beneficial in order to segregate the business’s IP (patents) from the rest of the assets of the business. For further information see the Malta tax exemption on patent royalties
THE EUROPEAN PATENT
CONVENTION
The EPC is an
intergovernmental treaty which enables people wishing to protect their
inventions in a number of European countries to benefit from a single
application and search procedure and a single grant of a bundle of
national patents in each of the contracting
states.
- Upon the grant, the patent becomes a bundle of national patents having effect in each of the contracting states for 20 years from the filing date (32 countries have acceded to the EPO).
- If the subject-matter of the European patent is a process, the protection conferred by the patent extends to the products directly obtained by such process.
- Any infringement of a European patent is be dealt with by national law.
