Patent registration in Spain. Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in southwestern Europe with parts of territory in the Atlantic Ocean and across the Mediterranean Sea. Spanish art, music, literature and cuisine have been influential worldwide, particularly in Western Europe and the Americas. As a reflection of its large cultural wealth, Spain has the world’s fourth-largest number of World Heritage Sites and is the world’s second-most visited country. Its cultural influence extends over 570 million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world’s second-most spoken native language. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of patent registration in Spain.
Patent in Spain
According to Spanish law, a patent in this country is a grant of a property right given by the Government to an inventor. With a patent, the inventor, or the patentee will have the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling the invention in a country, or importing the invention into a country, along with other rights to protect their best interests.
To be patentable in Spain, an invention must satisfy the requirement of new, inventive, and industrially applicability.
The novelty grace period of a Spanish invention is 6 months.
In addition, an invention that is patentable can also be an improvement on existing items or methods.
On the other hand, the subjects that are unpatentable in Spain are:
- Discoveries, laws of nature, and mathematical methods;
- Aesthetic designs;
- Systems, rules, and methods for the performance of mental labor, games or management, computer programs;
- Presentation of data and abstract ideas.
Necessary documents for patent registration in Spain
The necessary documents for patent registration in Spain include:
- The request to grant a patent (patent application);
- Detailed information on the applicant(s) including the applicant’s names, addresses, etc.;
- A description of the invention;
- A signed and stamped power of attorney by the applicant(s);
- A copy of the amendments (if any);
- Priority documents (if any).
- Other required documents.
The patent application can be filed on paper or electronically.
The official language of a patent application in Spain is Spanish. It is not permitted to file applications in any other language.
The procedure for patent registration in Spain
To obtain a patent in Spain, the applicant needs to file their patent application to the IP Office of Spain.
First, the applicant needs to file a request for a prior art search.
The request for the substantive examination must be submitted within 3 months from the publication of the prior art search report.
After that, the patent application will undergo the examination to check if it can be registered under Spanish IP Law or not.
During this stage, the applicant can choose to accelerate the examination process.
If the examinations are completed, the applicant will be granted a patent that has a 20 years validity period.
To maintain this validity, the patentee needs to pay annuities that are due each year, counting from the third year of the filing date.
If the applicant decides to register their invention through the European Patent Office, it should be noted that while the European patent application can be submitted in Spanish, the applicant needs to submit a translation into one of the official languages of the Convention (English, French or German).
You can find the list of IP firms in Spain here.