Patents
Patent is the right to the exclusive use of an invention for a specific period of time, for profit (industrial, commercial) in the territory of a country or countries, granted by a competent state, regional or international authority.
The Patent Office of the Republic of Poland discusses the principles of patents, their role, and the applicable industrial property protection acts:
- basic - applicable legal acts in the field of industrial property protection;
- draft legislation in the field of industrial property protection;
- guidelines of the President of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland on the interpretation of selected provisions of the Industrial Property Law and implementing regulations.
The Industrial Property Law of June 30, 2000 (new window) (Dz.U. 2003, No. 119, item 1117, as amended) does not define the concept of invention, but only indicates which inventions can be granted protection for.
"Patents are granted - regardless of the field of technology - for inventions that are new, have an inventive step and are suitable for industrial application."
A patentable invention thus defined must be a solution of a technical nature.
- an invention is considered new if it is not part of the state of the art. State of the art is understood as everything that, prior to the date by which priority to obtain a patent is determined, has been made available to the public in the form of a written or oral description, by use, exhibition or disclosure by other means.
- an invention is considered to have an inventive step if the invention is not obvious to the connoisseur from the state of the art.
- an invention is considered suitable for industrial application if, according to the invention, a product can be obtained or a method used, in the technical sense, in any industrial activity, not excluding agriculture.
Priority for obtaining patents, protection rights and registration rights
A patent for an invention is the right that is granted by the Patent Office by conditional decision (subject to payment of a fee for the first period of protection) to the patentee, after it has been determined in a full examination procedure that the conditions required for obtaining the patent have been met. A patent for an invention is the right to the exclusive use (monopoly) of the invention in a commercial or professional manner throughout its entire area of validity. Use of a patented invention includes all forms of using the invention, benefiting from the invention and disposing of the invention.
The use of the invention by others is possible only with the consent of the right holder, who may, by agreement, grant another person the authorization (license) to use someone's invention.
The scope of the patent (what is protected) is determined by the claims in the patent description.
Confirmation of the existence of a patent is a published patent document, consisting of a patent description including a description of the invention, patent claims and drawings (if any).
Granted patents are subject to entry in the patent register, and information on the grant is published in the Patent Office News.
The duration of a patent is up to 20 years from the date of filing an application for invention with the Patent Office.
The patent is transferable and inheritable, with the contract for the transfer of the patent requiring written form under pain of nullity. The transfer of a patent becomes effective against third parties when the transfer is recorded in the patent register.
Limitations of the monopoly resulting from the patent
After the expiration of three years from the date of obtaining a patent, the patentee or licensee may not abuse his right, in particular by preventing a third party from using the invention if it is necessary to meet the needs of the domestic market. This is especially necessary when the public interest requires it and the product is available to the public in insufficient quantity or quality or at excessively high prices.
In addition, a patent is not infringed, for example, by using the invention for research and experimental purposes, for evaluation, analysis, or teaching.
It is also permitted for third parties to use an article according to the invention or manufactured by means according to the invention by offering it for sale or further marketing it, if the article has been previously marketed in the territory by the right holder or with his/her consent. This is known as patent exhaustion.
Source: The Patent Office of the Republic of Poland (new window)
Publications of the Polish Patent Office
- Bulletin of the Patent Office (BUP) and News of the Patent Office (WUP) (new window)
- Collections of literature on patent documentation available at the CUT Library (new window)
- Scopus (nowe okno) (access only for registered users of the CUTLibrary) an interdisciplinary bibliographic and abstract database, searches patents in the:
- European Patent Office,
- Japanese Patent Office,
- UK Patent Office,
- US Patent Office,
- World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Publicly available patent databases on the Internet
- Patent Information Centre PATLIB (new window) – Patent Information Centre of the AGH Main Library, containing information on training courses, conferences, seminars and publications related to Patent Information.
- Espacenet (nowe okno) – patent documents of the European Patent Office and patent offices of individual European countries. The European Patent Office service is the largest free patent database on the Internet, it contains data on more than 50 million patents from all over the world, full texts of U.S., German, French and British patents, European patents (EP) and full texts of PCT applications (WO) bibliographic data of patents from more than 50 countries, also from Poland (full texts of Polish patent descriptions from No. 153901).
- Intellectual Property Digital Library (nowe okno) – the WIPO databases, the collection includes access to the full texts of PCT patents (since 1978), data on trademark registrations under the Madrid Agreement, industrial designs and other.
Other sources
- European Patent Office (new window) (EPO)
- Polish Chamber of Patent Attorneys (new window)
- World Intellectual Property Organization (new window) (WIPO)
- The United States Patent and Trademark Office (new window) (USPTO)
Trademarks
- eSearch plus (new window) – The EUIPO’s database (new window) – EU community trademarks, OHIM/OAMI
- Global Brand Database (nowe okno) – A tool that integrates trademark searches under: Madrid Agreement, Article 6 of the Paris Convention and the Lisbon Treaty
- Madrid System Goods & Services Manager (nowe okno) – a tool for compiling the list of goods and services accompanying an international application in the Madrid system of trademark registration
- ROMARIN (nowe okno) – international trademarks – WIPO databases – all sign registrations under the Madrid Agreement and Protocol
- TMclass (nowe okno) – a tool to assist users in classifying goods and services
- TM Profit Mark (new window) – Trademark registration in EU
Industrial designs
- Hague-Express (nowe okno) – international industrial designs registrations – WIPO databases
Inventions (and utility models)
- DepatisNET (new window) – a database of the German Patent and Trademark Office for online research of patent publications from around the world, using the DEPATIS internal electronic document archive (The German Patent Information System)
- European Patent Register (nowe okno) – information from the European Patent Register
- European Publication Server (nowe okno) – full texts of the EP patent applications and descriptions, updated on a regular basis, since 1978
- PATENTSCOPE (nowe okno) (WIPO) – a database providing access to international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications in full-text format on the date of publication, as well as patent documents of participating national and regional patent offices, updated on a regular basis, since 1978
- USPTO (nowe okno) (USA) – databases with full texts of patent documentation and granted patents (patents in the range from 1790 onward; applications in the range from 2001 onward)
Recommended links:
The European Patent Convention (new window)
WIPO Lex (new window) - Poland, Act of June 30, 2000, on Industrial Property