Utility model
- Also called “short-term” patent. (Slovenia)
- a “petty patent”. (Indonesia)
- a “utility certificate” France
- an “innovation patent” Australia
- or a unitlity innovation (Malaysia)
- “utility model patent (china)
Which countries do not provide protection of utility models?
UK, Luxumber and Swenden
1
The term of protection for utility models is short her then for patents and varies from country to country and usually lasts between 6 (for example in France) and 10 years (italy, Mexico, Poland, Thailand, Venezuela). Some national regulations offer utility models e.g Brazil 15 years, Malaysia even 20 years)
TRIPS Requirements of trade secret
according to Article 39.2 of the TRIPS Agreement, trade secret protection apply to information that meets the following requirements commutatively:
- Information must be confidential (kept in secret)
- Must have commercial value
- It has been subject to reasonable steps to keep it secret.
Different legal tools for protecting trade secrets:
- Specific regulations on trade secrets (e.g. Sweden)
- Provisions of unfair competition laws (e.g Austria, Germany, Poland and Spain)
- Provisions in industrial property regulations (e.g Portugal, France)
- Provisions on trade secrets in national labour laws or civil codes.
Trade Secret USA
Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016. It contains a statutory definition of trade secrets and provides a detailed description of the conduct which amounts to trade secrets misappropriation and/pr unfair competition.
Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016, on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets), against their unlawful acquisition, use, and disclosure.
Article 2
Trade secret means information which meets all the following requirements:
- It is secret in the sense that it is not, as a body or in the precise configuration and assembly of its components, generally known among or readily accessible to persons within the circles that normally deal with the kind of information in question.
- it has commercial value because it is secret
- It has been subject to reasonable steps under the circumstance, by the person lawfully in control of the information, to keep it secret.
Patent Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages:
- Legal monopoly over commercial exploitation of a patented invention on the market
- Relatively long period of 20 years protection
Disadvantages:
- long, complicated and costly procedures to obtain a patent
- high standards of a patentability
- obligation to disclosure an invention without guarantee of obtain a patent
- subject matters excluded from patentability
- protection limited in time
Utility Model Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
- Weaker requirements for obtaining protection then patents
- short time of waiting for protection to be granted
- Cheaper to obtain and to maintain then patents
Disadvantages
- protections available not for all kinds of inventions
- protection shorter than a patent (7-10 years)
- available only in some countries
Trade secret Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
- No formalities
- No registration costs
- Possible longer protection that provided by formally granted rights (patents, utility models)
- wide scope of subject matter protected
- not time limits of a protection
Disadvantages
- no legal, but only factual exclusivity
- no control over losing protection
- no specified duration of a protection (no fixed period of protection)
- control of necessary measures to keep secrecy
- limited scope of a protection (only agains unlawful steps of disclosure or use)
- more difficult to enforce
