Trademarks and patents: protect your intellectual property
Protecting business know-how, innovations, and products, as well as safeguarding the results achieved through work and research and development activities, is essential to maximise ROI (Return on Investment) and ensure survival over the medium to long term.
What is intellectual property?
Definition and scope of protection
Intellectual property is defined as the legal right a person holds over the intellectual creations of human ingenuity.
This concept includes a wide range of creations: from inventions and symbols to artistic and literary works, as well as names, images, logos, and designs used commercially.
Business value
Its main function is to protect the value created within the company, rewarding innovation and entrepreneurial initiatives by granting exclusivity over those creations.
In addition to protecting the individual creator, it also promotes competition and differentiation between business models, compelling competitors to invest in the search for original alternative solutions.
Legal classification
The intellectual property system is divided into two major branches: industrial property and copyright.
The former is specifically governed by the Industrial Property Code and includes tools such as trademarks and patents, while the latter protects creative and intellectual works.
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What are trademarks and patents?
What is a patent?
A patent is a legal title that grants its holder the exclusive right to use the invention developed, thereby giving them a temporary monopoly over its commercial exploitation.
According to the Italian Patent Office, a patent is:
“A title that allows the person who has created an invention to produce and market it exclusively in the state in which the patent has been filed.”
A patent is therefore an intellectual property protection tool granted to inventions that represent new, original, and innovative solutions, for a limited period of time, usually 20 years.
Not all inventions can be patented; only inventions that are new, involve an inventive step, and have industrial applicability.
A patent is valid only in the countries where it is registered, and there are four types of territorial protection for patents:
- Italian protection, through registration with the Italian Patent and Trademark Office (UIBM);
- European protection, through registration with the European Patent Office (EPO);
- International protection, through registration with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO);
- Foreign protection, through registration in the individual foreign state where the intellectual property is to be protected.
What is a trademark?
A trademark is defined as a sign used to identify the products or services of a given company and distinguish them from those of competitors.
This category includes all the signs and symbols associated with a company, such as words, personal names, designs, letters, numbers, colours, as well as the shape or packaging of a product.
To be registrable, a trademark must be distinctive, meaning it must have specific characteristics that make it unique, in order to avoid confusion in the minds of consumers with marks that are too similar.
A trademark is different from a logo or a brand: a logo is a set of graphic signs representing an object, product, or company. A brand, on the other hand, represents not only a logo, but the whole set of intangible elements, such as communication, company history, and corporate reputation.
A trademark, instead, is a registrable intangible asset that makes it possible to distinguish services and products from those of competitors in the eyes of consumers.
Trademark protection may also be obtained through use alone, according to the website of the Italian Patent and Trademark Office (UIBM), but it can be further strengthened through registration.
What can be registered as a trademark? Any symbol that can be represented graphically, such as words, drawings, numbers, and so on; sounds, in the form of musical notes recorded on a staff; product or packaging shapes; colour shades; and combinations of these elements.
Incentives for intellectual property
The Italian Ministry of Economic Development published Decree No. 156 of 06/07/2022 in the Official Gazette, allocating resources for three subsidised finance incentives:
Brevetti+
€20,000,000 allocated, plus an additional €10,000,000 from the PNRR
Marchi+
€2,000,000 allocated
Disegni+
€14,000,000 allocated
By operating in the field of research and development of innovative solutions and in support of industry, we have strong experience in the process of protecting intellectual property.
We have supported our clients in registering trademarks and patents, producing industrial designs, and preparing all the documentation needed to protect the inventions developed.