FELIPE VI

KING OF SPAIN

To all who present it and understand it.

Sabed: That the General Courts have approved and I come to sanction the following law.

Preamble.

Title I. Preliminary provisions.

Article 1. Object of the Law.

Article 2. Patent Registration.

Article 3. Legitimization.

Title II. Patentability.

Article 4. Patentable inventions.

Article 5. Exceptions to patentability.

Article 6. New.

Article 7. Harmless disclosures.

Article 8. Inventive activity.

Article 9. Industrial application.

Title III. Right to the patent and designation of the inventor.

Article 10. Right to the patent.

Article 11. Patent application per person not legitimized.

Article 12. Claim of entitlement.

Article 13. Effects of the change of ownership.

Article 14. Designation of the inventor.

Title IV. Inventions made in the context of a employment or service relationship.

Article 15. Inventions belonging to the employer.

Article 16. Inventions belonging to the employee or service provider.

Article 17. Inventions assumed by the employer.

Article 18. Duty of information and exercise of rights by the employer and the worker.

Article 19. Burden of proof and waiver of rights.

Article 20. Scope of application.

Article 21. Inventions made by the research staff of the Public Universities and Public Research Entes.

Title V. Request and Grant Procedure.

Chapter I. Presentation and requirements of the patent application.

Article 22. Submission of the application.

Article 23. Requirements for the request.

Article 24. Date of presentation.

Article 25. Designation of the inventor.

Article 26. Unit of invention.

Article 27. Description of the Invention.

Article 28. Claims.

Article 29. Summary.

Article 30. Priority.

Article 31. Priority claim.

Chapter II. Concession Procedure.

Article 32. Receipt of the request and referral to the OEPM.

Article 33. Set date for submission and admission to processing.

Article 34. Patents of interest to the national defense.

Article 35. Ex officio examination.

Article 36. Report on the state of the art and written opinion.

Article 37. Publishing the request and report.

Article 38. Third party comments.

Article 39. Substantive examination.

Article 40. Processing and resolution.

Article 41. Notice of the granting and publication of the patent.

Article 42. Issue of the patent prospectus.

Chapter III. Oppositions and resources.

Article 43. Oppositions.

Article 44. Resources.

Chapter IV. Complementary certificates for the protection of medicinal products and plant protection products.

Article 45. Requests.

Article 46. Processing.

Article 47. Maintenance.

Chapter V. Provisions common to all third party procedures and information.

Article 48. Modifications.

Article 49. Error rectification.

Article 50. Suspension of procedures.

Article 51. Mode change.

Article 52. Withdrawal of the request.

Article 53. Reestablishing rights.

Article 54. Review of acts on administrative and administrative matters.

Article 55. Case query.

Article 56. Accessibility of biological matter.

Article 57. Obligation to provide information to third parties.

Title VI. Effects of the patent and the patent application.

Article 58. Duration and computation of effects.

Article 59. Prohibition of direct exploitation of the invention.

Article 60. Prohibition of indirect exploitation of the invention.

Article 61. General limits and exhaustion of patent law.

Article 62. Derogations from the farmer and farmer.

Article 63. Rights derived from the previous use.

Article 64. Lack of coverage against previous patents.

Article 65. Dependent patents.

Article 66. Legal limitations.

Article 67. Provisional protection.

Article 68. Scope of protection.

Article 69. Scope of protection in procedural patents.

Title VII. Actions for violation of patent law.

Article 70. Defense of the right.

Article 71. Civil actions.

Article 72. Damage and damage compensation budgets.

Article 73. Exhibition of documents for the calculation of compensation.

Article 74. Calculation of damages and periodic penalty payments.

Article 75. Impact of trade benefits.

Article 76. Compensation for disrepute.

Article 77. Deduction of allowances already received.

Article 78. Limitation of actions and limit to the exercise of actions.

Title VIII. Patent and patent application as objects of the right of ownership.

Chapter I. Registration, co-ownership and expropriation.

Article 79. Registration in the Patent Registry.

Article 80. Co-ownership.

Article 81. Expropriation.

Chapter II. Transfers, Licenses, and Gravenses.

Article 82. General principles.

Article 83. Contractual licenses.

Article 84. Technical knowledge.

Article 85. Responsibility of the transferor and licensor.

Article 86. Liability to third parties.

Chapter III. Full licenses.

Article 87. Full licenses.

Article 88. Offering full licenses.

Article 89. Obtaining full licenses.

Title IX. Obligation to operate and compulsory licences.

Chapter I. Obligation to exploit the invention and requirements for the granting of compulsory licenses.

Article 90. Obligation to operate.

Article 91. Mandatory licensing assumptions.

Article 92. Compulsory licences due to lack or insufficient exploitation.

Article 93. Mandatory licenses per dependency.

Article 94. Compulsory licensing to remedy anticompetitive practices.

Article 95. Compulsory licences for reasons of public interest.

Article 96. Compulsory licences for the manufacture of medicinal products for countries with public health problems.

Chapter II. Procedure for the granting of compulsory licences.

Article 97. Prior justification of the applicant for the license.

Article 98. License request.

Article 99. Processing and resolution.

Chapter III. Regime of compulsory licences.

Article 100. Characteristics of the mandatory licenses.

Article 101. Assignment, modification and cancellation of compulsory licenses.

Title X. Nullity, revocation, and expiration of the patent.

Chapter I. Nullity.

Article 102. Causes of nullity.

Article 103. Exercise of the action for nullity.

Article 104. Effects of the declaration of invalidity.

Chapter II. Revocation or limitation at the instance of the patent holder.

Article 105. Request for revocation or limitation.

Article 106. Procedure.

Article 107. Effects of revocation or limitation.

Chapter III. Expiration.

Article 108. Causes of expiration.

Article 109. Expiration due to lack of timely payment of an annuity.

Article 110. Waiver.

Title XI. Patents of interest to the national defense.

Article 111. Subject to the secrecy regime.

Article 112. Processing.

Article 113. Maintenance of the secrecy regime.

Article 114. Annuities and compensation.

Article 115. Applications abroad.

Title XII. Jurisdiction and procedural rules.

Chapter I. General provisions.

Article 116. Jurisdiction.

Article 117. Legitimization for the exercise of actions.

Article 118. Competence.

Article 119. Time limits for patent litigation.

Article 120. Nullity of the actor's patent.

Article 121. Negative action.

Article 122. Treatment of confidential information.

Chapter II. Fact-checking measures.

Article 123. Request for the proceedings.

Article 124. Practice of the proceedings.

Article 125. Certifications and copies of the proceedings.

Article 126. Compensation from the affected party.

Chapter III. Precautionary measures.

Article 127. Request for precautionary measures.

Article 128. Possible precautionary measures.

Article 129. Sureties.

Article 130. Precautionary measures in case of appeal.

Article 131. Lifting of precautionary measures.

Article 132. Preventive writings.

Chapter IV. Out-of-court settlement of disputes.

Article 133. Reconciliation in the matter of employee inventions.

Article 134. Conciliation committee.

Article 135. Proposal for agreement and agreement.

Article 136. Arbitration and mediation.

Title XIII. Utility models.

Chapter I. Object and protection requirements.

Article 137. Inventions that can be protected as utility models.

Article 138. Right to protection.

Article 139. State of the art.

Article 140. Inventive activity.

Chapter II. Grant application and procedure.

Article 141. Submission and content of the request.

Article 142. Assignment of the filing date and ex officio examination.

Article 143. Publication of the request.

Article 144. Oppositions to the request.

Article 145. Procedure and resolution.

Article 146. Resources.

Article 147. Publication of the modifications.

Chapter III. Effects of the concession.

Article 148. Content of the right and exercise of actions.

Article 149. Nullity.

Article 150. Application of the patent provisions.

Title XIV. Implementation of international conventions.

Chapter I. Presentation and effects of European patent applications and European patents in Spain.

Article 151. Scope of application.

Article 152. Submission of European patent applications.

Article 153. Value of the European patent application and the European patent.

Article 154. Rights conferred by the published European patent application.

Article 155. Translation and publication of the European patent.

Article 156. Register of European Patents.

Article 157. Full text of the European patent application and the European patent.

Article 158. Transformation of the European patent application into a national patent application.

Article 159. Transformation of the European patent application into a utility model application.

Article 160. Double protection ban.

Article 161. Annuities.

Chapter II. Application of the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

Section 1. Scope and international applications deposited in Spain.

Article 162. Scope of application.

Article 163. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office as the Receiving Office.

Article 164. Conversion of international applications.

Article 165. Claim priority of previous deposit in Spain.

Article 166. Extension of time limits for the payment of fees.

Section 2. th International applications designating or choosing Spain.

Article 167. Action of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office as a Designated or Eligible Office.

Article 168. Date of filing and effects of the international application.

Article 169. Processing of the international application.

Article 170. Publication of the international application.

Article 171. Review by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

Article 172. Effects of a patent granted on the basis of an international application.

Article 173. Effects of the granting of a patent based on an international application for a patent based on a national application.

Article 174. The Spanish Office as an International Search and Preliminary Examination Administration.

Title XV. Representation to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

Article 175. Capacity and representation.

Article 176. Agents of Industrial Property.

Article 177. Access to the profession of Industrial Property Agent.

Article 178. Incompatibilities.

Article 179. Exercise of the professional activity and Special Register of Agents and the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

Article 180. Cessation of the qualification for the exercise of the activity of professional representation.

Article 181. Community freedom to provide services and information obligations.

Title XVI. Fees and annuities.

Article 182. Fees.

Article 183. Reimbursement of fees.

Article 184. Annuities and maintenance fee.

Article 185. Surcharges.

Article 186. Reduction of fees.

Additional disposition first. Legal status of the procedures.

Additional provision second. Maximum time limits for the resolution of Industrial Property procedures.

Additional provision third. Preferential processing of requests.

Additional provision fourth. Fees for the action of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Additional provision fifth. Advertisement of requests and resolutions and public consultation of files.

Additional provision sixth. Accelerated grant programs.

Additional provision seventh. Coordination with the competent bodies of the Autonomous Communities.

Additional disposition octave. Telematic communications with Courts and Courts.

Additional provision ninth. Exercise of shares based on securities the grant of which is not firm on an administrative basis.

Additional provision 10th. Application of the rate regime for obtaining and maintaining the securities provided for in this Law.

First transient disposition. Transitional arrangements for procedures.

Second transient disposition. Rules applicable to the titles of protection of inventions granted in accordance with previous legislation.

Transitional provision third. Fees and annuities.

Transitional disposition fourth. Harmless disclosures.

Transient disposition fifth. Application of the regime on the exploitation and disposal of inventions by the Public Research Entes.

Transitional disposition sixth. Court actions.

Single repeal provision. Regulatory repeal.

Final disposition first. Amendment of the Law of 16 December 1954 on mortgage and clothing without displacement of possession.

Final disposition second. Amendment of Law 17/1975 of 2 May on the creation of the Autonomous Body Registry of Industrial Property.

Final disposition third. Amendment of Law 17/2001 of 7 December of Marks.

Final disposition fourth. Amendment of Law 20/2003 of 7 July on Legal Protection of Industrial Design.

Final disposition fifth. Amendment of Law 2/2014 of 25 March of the Action and of the State's Foreign Service.

Final disposition sixth. Competence title.

Final disposition seventh. Development of the Law.

Final disposition octave. Safeguard clause.

Final disposition ninth. Entry into force.

Attachment.

PREAMBLE

I

Law 11/1986 of March 20, of Patents was the complete reform of our patent system in the context of Spain's entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), whose negotiation included a chapter on the subject, and the accession to the Convention on the granting of the European Patent, made in Munich on 5 October 1973, which took place in that year of 1986.

The solidity and flexibility of the Patent Law has allowed, over its three decades of validity, to combine the stability of its regulatory framework with the necessary changes to accommodate it in a timely manner. Community and international of this sector of the order, without the need for a new Law, suffando with partial reforms of its articulated.

Examples of this adaptive evolution were Law 10/2002 of 29 April, amending Law 11/1986 of 20 March, of Patents, for the incorporation into Spanish law of Directive 98 /44/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 6 July on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions and Law 19/2006 of 5 June extending the means of protection of intellectual and industrial property rights and laying down rules In addition to many other Community regulations, the Court of minor modifications, which affected both the Law and its subsequent regulatory development.

This, however, from the experience gained in applying existing legislation to a reality that has changed substantially since 1986, a general update of the legislation is necessary for which on this occasion, given the number of precepts affected and the nature of the changes, it is not enough simply to reform the partial reform as they have done so far.

In the international arena several factors have contributed to the change. One of them is the movement from national concession procedures to international ones and the growth, in number and in proportion, of patents dealt with through the latter. In 1986 all patents were granted on a national basis. Today more than 90 percent of patents with effect in Spain are by the European Patent Office (EPO), and our country may be designated or elected in international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, made in Washington on 19 June 1970 (best known by its English acronym PCT), and the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) was also a preliminary international search and examination administration under the terms of the said Treaty.

Another factor of change, associated with the decisive role of innovation as a support for international trade in an increasingly globalized economy, was the integration of Industrial Property, through the Agreement on Aspects of the Rights of Intellectual Property Related to Trade (TRIPS), in the framework of the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO), made in Marrakesh on April 15, 1994, to which Spain joined on January 1 of 1995.

There is also a need for further development of the European Union's patent law, which has so far been embodied in the aforementioned Directive on the protection of biotechnological inventions, and the creation of supplementary protection certificates for medicinal products and for plant protection products (CPC). This regulatory framework must be added to the Treaty on the Law of Patents, made in Geneva on 1 June 2000 (also known by its acronym in English, PLT), ratified by Spain in 2013, which aims to facilitate processing and to avoid involuntary loss of rights for formal reasons.

The reform now being addressed is intended, in this new context, to bring the legal framework into line with current needs and to facilitate the rapid procurement of solid titles for Spanish innovators, the main users of the system, In the case of patents granted by national means, they are of Spanish origin by more than 95%. In the utility models the percentage is similar.

This is why one of the reasons for this update, in line with the objectives proposed in Law 2/2011, of 4 March, of Sustainable Economy and Law 14/2011, of 1 June, of Science, Technology and Innovation, is that of simplify and speed up the protection of innovation by means of patents and strengthen legal certainty, establishing as the only system for the granting of patents that of prior examination of novelty and inventive activity, the gradual introduction of which was Originally provided for in the Patent Law of 1986. The current optional system or "à la carte" system, introduced in the reform carried out by Royal Decree-Law 8/1998 of 31 July, is therefore eliminated from urgent measures in the field of industrial property.

The figure of the utility model is also modified in substantial aspects, such as the determination of the state of the relevant technique, the type of inventions that can be protected under this modality and the conditions for exercise the actions in defence of the right derived from this protection title.

As for the certificates of addition, which could be applied for throughout the legal life of the patent, they hardly reflect today in European comparative law. With the exception of an isolated exception, in the countries of our environment, it is not considered necessary to regulate certain accessories which may be requested throughout the legal life of the patent and do not require inventive activity against the object of the patent. Main patent, mainly because this type of improvement is within the scope of protection of the equivalent means of the matrix invention.

In addition, the regulation of internal priority allows for the improved presentation of subsequent applications for a period of time and makes it superfluous to maintain an otherwise marginal figure, which has been rarely used by the holders of the patents in force. For these reasons they are removed from the regulation, contained in Title X of the previous Act.

Provisions regarding calls in the Patent Act of 1986 "work inventions" are also updated and other provisions on CCPs, compulsory licenses, nullity, limitation and expiration procedures are also included. access to professional representation and their exercise in the context of the transposition of Directive 2006 /123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December on services in the internal market. They are also recast in the law, as is customary in comparative law, the basic rules for applying the European and international routes for the protection of inventions, which were laid down in two regulations after the 1986 Law. All these aspects will be alluded to in later paragraphs of this introduction whose positive order follows the systematic of the Law.

Finally, for the sake of simplification and regulatory clarity, it was necessary to update precepts that refer to already repealed provisions, to remove others that have ceased to make sense in the disappearance of the circumstances that justified in their day, to download the Law of Standards that can be taken to the regulation, giving to the set of greater adaptive flexibility, as well as to adjust the new text to the current criteria that impose the labeling of the articulated.

It is obvious that this general review cannot be dealt with from a simple partial reform that will add to the previous ones. A new legal text is needed which essentially maintains the structure of the previous regulatory framework, incorporates these amendments in line with the current regulatory technical guidelines, for greater clarity and systematic consistency of the set of the regulation.

II

In the preliminary provisions of Title I the registration unit is established in relation to the principle of market unit and the national coverage of the securities, including the complementary certificates of protection of medicinal products and plant protection products, and the right to request them to be applied in accordance with the criteria opened for Community titles by their respective rules of procedure, which are recognised by natural persons or legal entities including entities governed by public law.

Title II, on patentability, incorporates the amendments adopted for European patents following the European Patent Convention (EPC) Review Act, which was made in Munich on 29 November 2000, to the make explicit the possibility of patenting substances or compositions already known for use as a drug or for new therapeutic applications. As regards methods of surgical, therapeutic and diagnostic treatment, they will remain excluded from patent protection in the same cases where they were previously, but without the need to resort to the fiction of their lack of application. industrial.

For clarity, when delimiting the state of the art, it is expressly mentioned, among the interferences, to the previous European patent applications that have been designated by Spain and have been published in Spanish and international PCTs that enter into national phase in Spain, which were not explicitly mentioned in the previous Law, because, when it was enacted, Spain was not yet part of these Conventions.

The grace period for disclosures caused by the applicant or his causative that does not involve exploitation or a commercial offer of the invention is also deleted. This exception does not exist in European comparative law and can damage the novelty of the invention if it is to extend its protection to countries that do not recognize that grace period.

III

Title III, on the right to the patent and the designation of the inventor remains in the essential unchanged. Nor does the regulation in Title IV vary from the inventions made in the context of a relationship of employment or services in relation to the attribution of their ownership. However, the conditions for the exercise of the rights which the Law recognises for each of the parties to the employment or services relationship are required, seeking a better balance between the duty of information of the employee and the execution of the commitment assumed, by the employer or employer.

The presumption iuris et de iure is also replaced, which allows the employer to claim ownership of the inventions whose patent will be sought within the year following the extinction of the employment relationship, on the other hand, admits proof to the contrary, that these inventions were made during the lifetime of the same.

As regards the inventions made by the research staff at the service of the Public Universities, the Public Research Bodies, and the Research Bodies of other Public Administrations In order to adapt the Law of Patents with Law 14/2011 of 1 June, of Science, Technology and Innovation-which amended the Law of Patents in its second final disposition-and with Law 2/2011, of 4 March, of Sustainable Economy. This is a matter on which there will inevitably be a certain regulatory dispersion given the remission of the Patent Law itself to the governing bodies of the Universities and to the regulatory authority of the Government or the Communities. Stand-alone.

IV

Title V is one of the axes of the reform and includes the patent application and the procedures for granting, opposition and resources, the rules of application of the Community regulations on complementary certificates, and the general provisions common to all of them.

The Act simplifies the requirements for filing date, harmonised by the Patent Law Treaty (PTL) and already applied in the international procedures mentioned above.

The requirements of the application include the obligation to report on the geographical origin or source of provenance of the biological material to which the invention relates, although this information does not prejudge the validity of the the patent.

Another novelty is the recognition of the internal priority, so as not to discriminate against those who present their first application in Spain and to allow them the improved or corrected presentation of subsequent applications, benefiting from the Priority effects for common elements to both requests.

In the system of concession the Law departs from the optional regime introduced in the reform carried out by the Royal Decree-Law 8/1998, of July 31 and returns to the preliminary examination or noun of novelty and inventive activity as unique the system for granting patents, the gradual implementation of which, as has already been said, was originally foreseen in the Law of 1986.

The "à la carte" model of procedure, more based on user preferences than on the incentive of innovation, ends at times for shifting to competitors the cost and burden of annulling patents that they never had to be granted, and to lead to distortions of competition based on securities whose presumption of validity can only be destroyed on the court.

The optional system is also incongruous with the status of the OEPM as the International Examination Administration under the PCT, with the necessary training-in personnel and specialization-required by the Organization. World Intellectual Property (WIPO) to assume these functions, and assumes an incorrect allocation of public resources dedicated to the legal protection of innovation in Spain, since the OEPM has to dedicate part of these means to deal with applications which are then abandoned after a successful technical examination and formalities, or which have be granted in any case, regardless of the results of the state of the art search.

Nothing justifies, in effect, the granting of a patent when the report on the state of the art reveals that the invention that is the object of the invention is not such, because it lacks novelty or inventive activity.

Within the concession model with generalized prior examination that is now adopted, modifications are also introduced in the procedure looking for a more integrated model whose objective is to move directly to the search phase for all requests, as in international procedures, so that their initiation is not subject to other conditions than are essential for the realization of the search itself.

This replaces the previous procedure with the other that integrates the search with the technical examination, and whose conclusions will be reflected in the written opinion. This will already be a first communication from the examiner whose observations and objections, if any, may be answered by the person concerned when he requests the substantive examination if he decides to continue with the procedure, modifying the application in his case necessary to meet legal requirements.

When the search is advanced, the procedure is accelerated in the essential aspect for the person concerned, which is to provide him with timely access to the relevant information to decide to maintain his or her application and, if necessary, to patent in the within the priority period. This is the reason for the initial payment of the search fee, as is also the case for European patents and the international PCT procedure.

For its part in the substantive examination it shall be the object of the verification that both the patent application and the invention that constitutes its object satisfy all the requirements, formal, technical and patentability established in the Law.

In order to speed up the procedure, the previous oppositions are replaced by a post-concession opposition system, which is generalized in the comparative law, although the observations of third parties are maintained, without being part of the procedure, may be submitted after the application has been published and refer to any aspect related to the patentability of the invention. The deferred opposition system requires the administrative resources regime to be amended accordingly against the granting of the patent. They may be brought in by those who have been a party to the opposition proceedings and shall be directed against the contested decision of the opposition.

Chapter IV on CCP is limited to regulating certain issues whose verification of Community legislation leaves the internal law and the rate regime. The rest of the regulation is already contained in the Community legislation which is directly applicable to this type of securities.

Finally, the general rules on the procedure and information of third parties are harmonised with those established in common matters for other forms of Industrial Property. Among the new ones to highlight is the possibility of invoking the restoration of rights for the term of priority in line with the established in the international procedures and in the PLT, the norms regarding the modification of the application and claims in the various procedures and the obligation to specify in writing the differences between the previous text and the new set of claims that modifies it.

V

Titles VI and VII have already been updated in previous reforms and are barely affected. The first, where the scope and limits of the patent law are regulated, was amended by the aforementioned Law 10/2002 of 29 April, and by Law 29/2006 of 26 July, of guarantees and rational use of medicines and medical devices, to the specifically mention the limits to the patent right, the studies and trials carried out for the authorisation of medicinal products including the preparation, procurement and use of the active substance for these purposes.

However, in the new Law, the exception of experimental use and the so-called "Bolar clause", which have different origin and purpose, are separated as different cases, as has been recognized by the case law of the Court of Justice. Supreme.

Other minor changes are to make explicit the reference to equivalent means to determine the extent of protection, to remove some rules that have become obsolete as the assumptions that have been made disappear. justifying, and in order to clarify the extent of exhaustion, as a general limit to the exercise of the right.

The defence actions of the patent holder, as referred to in Title VII, were also updated in Law 19/2006 of 5 June, mentioned at the beginning of this exhibition, which included rules concerning measures interim and precautionary measures, the liability of intermediaries and the fixing of compensation. However, in some respects the adequacy of Directive 2004 /48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the setting up of the damage and injury is improved. damages, a minimum royalty and not a maximum fee as it was so far.

The Law also adds the periodic penalty payments to guarantee the cessation of the infringing activity, and refers to everything related to the calculation and liquidation of the compensation to the execution phase of the resolution on the a fund which has appreciated the existence of an infringement, since at the time of the application the actor may not have the information necessary to make his claim for compensation. On the other hand, the considerable evidentiary and allegatory effort required by both the actor and the defendant, the quantification of the damages, implies for the process a complexity and an added cost that is not justified if the The sentence turns out to be absolute.

VI

Title VIII on the patent application and the patent as objects of the right of ownership is initiated with the general principles of registration, such as advertising, the registration qualification based on legality and the log closure effect that is proper to the priority principle.

Furthermore, Law 25/2009, of 22 December, amending various Laws for its adaptation to the Law on Free Access to Services and its Exercise, abolished the requirement of a public document in the formalization of transfers and licenses, referring to the rules of form and documentation.

The obligation to exploit the invention and the compulsory licensing regime is dedicated to Title IX.

In this matter, the adaptations in subsequent laws, such as Law 66/1997 of 30 December, of Fiscal, Administrative and Social Order Measures, consisted of "de minima" reforms that were limited to eliminating or modifying certain provisions manifestly incompatible with TRIPS, but left intact the rest of the regulation, which was based on a budget which ceased to exist once the said Agreement produced effects in Spain.

In fact, when the Patent Law of 1986 was drafted, the obligation to exploit the object of the patent required its manufacture or execution on national territory. Following the implementation of TRIPS in Spain, it is sufficient to have the domestic market supplied by imports from any WTO member country. Such a radical change left much of the previous regulation inoperative, since, with it, it was intended to prevent imports from replacing manufacturing in the country, and this was precisely what was later legalized. The consequences of this liberalizing model on Intellectual Property rights as a support for international trade are a good example of what has then been called globalization.

Today, the alleged lack or insufficient exploitation is basically limited to shortages or other abuses arising from anticompetitive practices or domain positions, which can be addressed from the law of the or through direct intervention by the Government on grounds of public interest. These possibilities for action were already foreseen in the Patent Act of 1986 and are maintained with some variants, in the present one.

The new Law therefore reorders and simplifies the regulation of compulsory licenses, eliminating numerous articles related to the concept of exploitation prior to the TRIPS. However, two new cases of compulsory licences are included, which are the need to put an end to practices which a firm administrative decision of national or Community scope, or a judgment, have found to be contrary to the legislation to protect competition, and compulsory licences for the manufacture of medicinal products intended for export to countries with public health problems provided for in Regulation (EC) No 816/2006, the European Parliament and the Council of 17 May 2006 regulating them.

The possibility of disrupting the holding is limited to one year instead of the previous three, which was unjustifiably long when the holding is disengaged from manufacturing in the country. For the same reasons, conditional submission to the compulsory licensing regime is abolished.

For the rest, the prior attempt of a contractual license is not limited to the case of the dependency and is now previewed in general, except for the cases excepted in the aforementioned TRIPS. It is also expressly stated that the proof that the invention is being exploited corresponds to the patent holder.

The processing and resolution is simplified, with a procedure with the submission of evidence and arguments by the parties, transfer, defence and the possibility of mediation or, failing that, a commission of experts-one by each of the parties and a third party appointed by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, to determine the conditions of the license. The compulsory licence shall be extended to CCPs which, on the basis of the licence or subsequently, are subject to the basic patent covered by the licence.

VII

The rules relating to the nullity and revocation of patents contained in Title X are subject to some changes resulting from their adaptation to subsequent standards referred to below.

In the nullity process the prohibition of partially annulling a claim is abolished, and it is anticipated that the patent holder can limit it by modifying the claims, so that the patent thus limited serves as a basis the process, as is already the case with European patents and extend the effects of nullity to CCPs in so far as it affects the right to the product protected by the basic patent which is the basis for the granting of such patents.

Chapter II of this Title X regulates a procedure of revocation or limitation at the instance of the holder of the patent before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, which can be initiated at any time during the life of the patent. legal patent, and the effects of which are retroactive, as is the case with total or partial nullity.

The rehabilitation of expired patents in case of force majeure is replaced by the broader and less rigid possibility of the re-establishment of rights, which would apply to the same assumption, and consequently disappears as figure. In any event, the expiration of an annuity for non-payment shall not occur before the periods of delay provided for in the Law elapse, and the payment may also be made by the holders of rights entered on the patent which may be affected by the expiration of the same.

With regard to the applications and patents of interest to the national defense subject to the secret regime, the regime of which is contemplated in Title XI, some changes are introduced in order to allow the continuity of its processing. (a) as long as such a system is maintained, and to specify the conditions for filing first applications abroad prior to the authorization of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, or in accordance with the provisions of international conventions in matters of defence subscribed by Spain.

VIII

The rules on jurisdiction and procedural rules have already been updated with the reforms of Law 1/2000, of 7 January, of Civil Procedure, Law 17/2001, of 7 December, of Marks, and in Law 19/2006, of 5 June, by extending the means of protection of intellectual and industrial property rights and laying down procedural rules to facilitate the application of various Community regulations.

In Chapter I of Title XII the legitimization for the exercise of the actions is recognized, in addition to the holders of the registered rights, who are credited with having duly requested the registration of the act or business The legal basis of which it brings causes the right to be enforced, provided that such registration becomes granted.

As to jurisdiction, references to the Judge of First Instance are removed and the jurisdiction of the relevant Judge of the Commercial is attributed to the jurisdiction of the Court in accordance with Article 86.ter.2 (a) of the Law. Organic 6/1985, of July 1, of the Judiciary. The Law also deals with the closeness and decentralization of justice with the deepening of the model of judicial specialization in the field of patents, entrenching this model through a concentration of the issues attributed by the objective competence of the Judge of the Commercial City of the City of the High Court of Justice in which the General Council of the Judiciary has agreed to exclusively attribute the knowledge of the matters of patents, criteria for territorial competence.

Furthermore, the procedural time limits for the very complexity of patent litigation are accommodated, given the extraordinary importance of expert opinions in patent litigation and the need to provide for They are also subject to the right of defence, extending the time limits for answering claims and reassurances in Article 119.

With regard to the nullity of the title referred to, as an exception, the patent holder is allowed to apply in his case for his treatment as a counterclaim or limit his claims, with principal or subsidiary character, always in writing and in sufficient time for the applicant to modify or maintain his claims in the light of the proposed limitation.

It is also anticipated that when the patent will be modified outside the process, for example, in an oppositions procedure before the European Patent Office, the patent holder may request that the patent be modified to serve as a basis for the process by processing allegations against the counterparty.

Chapters II and III on measures to check facts and precautionary measures include certain amendments aimed at making their scope more concrete and enabling sensitive information to be collected when necessary. measures necessary to reconcile the interests of the defendant in preserving the confidentiality of the information and the right to effective judicial protection of the procedural party that requires it.

There is also a clear and unambiguous collection of the need for fact-checking measures to be carried out without prior notification to those who need to bear them in order not to frustrate the good end of the procedure.

With regard to the precautionary measures, the regulation of the replacement procedure is required, the amount of which will be fixed by the court during the processing of the measures and with the hearing of the parties, in such a way as to ensure that the can be specified in the same procedure without the need to open another one of allegations and evidence on such a course. A period of time is also set for the defendant, once the measures have been raised, if appropriate, for his claim for compensation, and it is envisaged that if the security does not cover all the damage caused, there is no other procedure for the enforcement of a firm resolution that has already determined such damages, and can follow the award path against the person responsible.

Finally, preventive writings are introduced as a procedural instrument to defend themselves against the possibility of precautionary measures that are not part of the obligation of those who have been required or are afraid to be a taxable person, so that be able to appear before the competent court and preemptively justify its position.

Chapter IV of this Title XII deals with the reconciliation of employee inventions and arbitration and mediation as mechanisms for the out-of-court settlement of disputes.

As for the first, the rules of the Law of Patents of 1986 concerning the conciliation before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office in case of litigation, which happens to be voluntary, and on the composition of the commission, are reviewed. (a) to apply it, the parity of which was called into question when, as was often the case, the employee, in raising the complaint, had ceased to belong to the company's staff. The proposal for an agreement and the effects of the certification of the agreement by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will also be more fully regulated if there is compliance, the implementation of which will be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the the Law on Civil Procedure for the execution of judicially approved judgments and conventions.

This type of reconciliation is maintained as one more option that adds to the existing mediation and arbitration procedures recognized in Article 136 of this Law and in which the future participation of the Office is foreseen. Spanish Patent and Trademark to be included among its purposes and functions as possible mediation and arbitration institution according to the final disposition second.

IX

For utility models the common element in comparative law is, paradoxically, the disparity. Since it is a title whose legal configuration is not subject to international harmonisation criteria, this disparity affects not only the procedures but also the very conception of the title and even its very existence, since this modality does not recognizes in all countries.

In Spain, utility models have been a protective title well adapted to the needs of our companies, as evidenced by the number of applications and the percentage of those submitted that have national origin, which It reaches 95 percent. Therefore, in its regulation, contained in Title XIII, the current approach based on the sui generis model and not on the "simplified patent" approach is maintained, but with some changes aimed at adapting this modality to current needs and speed up processing.

The first important novelty is the equalization of the state of the relevant technique with the one required for patents, thus avoiding the uncertainty that comes with the concept of disclosure and eliminating the concept of novelty On the subject, which makes little sense in today's world, very different from that of 1986 when there was no possibility of widespread access to all kinds of information and documentary funds through new technologies. At this point, the essential difference with patents remains the requirement for models of a lower level of inventive activity than patents.

The area of what can be protected as a utility model is also extended, until now practically restricted to the field of mechanics, excluding only, in addition to the procedures and inventions that have as their object The invention also relates to the use of said biological agents, which are also used as medicaments in human or veterinary medicine. Exclusion is maintained for these sectors due to their special characteristics, but not for the rest of the chemicals, substances or compositions, which may be eligible for this protection.

As for the concession procedure, third-party oppositions remain prior to and not after the concession, since there will be no substantive examination as in the patents and, unlike the industrial design, with the utility model is protected technical rules whose exclusive generates a monopolistic projection that does not exist in the design. For the same reason, the exercise of the right to obtain a report on the state of the art referred to in the subject-matter of the title in which the action is founded is conditional upon the processing of the claim being suspended, the defendant's instance, until the applicant has provided such a report to the cars.

X

A new Title XIV is introduced on the application in Spain of the European Patent Convention (EPC), made in Munich on 5 October 1973 and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), made in Washington on June 19, 1970, which, as is customary in comparative law, integrates in the Law the rules of application of the European route and the international way for the protection of inventions in Spain, recasting and synthesizing the The main provisions already laid down in two Regulations adopted after the entry into force of the Law  11/1986, of 20 March, of Patents, when Spain joined these international conventions.

The rules on representation, agents and agents, of which Title XV is concerned, have already been reviewed by Royal Decree-Law 8/1998 of 31 July, of urgent measures in the field of industrial property and subsequently by the Additional provision third of Law 17/2001, of 7 December, of Marks.

The modifications that are now incorporated, referred to the Agents of Industrial Property, are adapted to Law 17/2009, of 23 November, on the free access to the activities of services and their exercise, regulating the norms basic access and exercise of professional representation within the framework of Directive 2005 /36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 September 2005 on the recognition of professional qualifications and on Royal Decree 1837/2008, of 8 November, which he transfers.

An aptitude test for access to a regulated profession is maintained, such as the Industrial Property Agent, whose qualification must be accredited by way of training and the ability to pass the aptitude test, requirements which, as is obvious, can only be met by natural persons, but other requirements for access to this profession, such as the setting up of bail or the hiring of liability insurance, are abolished. The exercise of the professional representation of the Agents is also foreseen through legal persons, who under certain conditions will be able to register as qualified representatives in the Special Register of the Spanish Patent Office and Marks.

Finally, what had already been updated by regulation was incorporated into the Law, replacing the previous authorization regime with a responsible declaration that enables to start the exercise of the activity of professional representation.

In Title XVI, on fees and annuities, the rules on fees and their regime of refunds, surcharges, maintenance and exemptions are updated and reordered, with a reduction of 50 percent of the fees paid by application of the report on the state of the art and examination, as well as the first three annuities, for certain entrepreneurs and SMEs. Moreover, the reduction of 15% in the amount of the fees linked to the electronic submission of applications or written submissions is maintained when they are paid prior to or at the same time by those technical means.

The payment of the annuities shall be made within three months after the date of accrual, and the advance payments shall be abolished. The date of accrual shall be for each annuity on the last day of the month anniversary of the filing date of the application. However, in addition to the permitted delays with the corresponding surcharges, the payment without loss of rights may be regularised by paying the additional regularisation fee provided for in the second rate of the Law for the time that elapses. up to date of accrual of the following annuity.

In the additional provisions, the supplementary application of Law 30/1992, of 26 November, of the Legal Regime of the Public Administrations and of the Common Administrative Procedure, is confirmed, the future fixing of the maximum time limits for the resolution of the procedures in accordance with Article 59.3 of Law 2/2011 of 4 March of the Sustainable Economy and the negative silence is established without prejudice to the obligation to resolve by means of express resolution without any connection to the sense of silence.

Other additional provisions relate to the advertising and consultation of files by telematic means, to communications with Courts and Courts in electronic format and to the establishment by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism of the coordination and cooperation mechanisms between the OEPM and the Autonomous Communities, so that they remain informed throughout the procedure once the application has been published. The possibility of preferential treatment for applications related to technologies related to the objectives mentioned in the Law on Sustainable Economy cited above is also foreseen, as well as the establishment of accelerated concession programs. to which the person concerned may expressly benefit under the conditions which are determined to be determined.

In the final provisions the Law 17/1975, of May 2, of the creation of the Autonomous Body "Registry of Industrial Property" (today OEPM) is amended to include the impulse of mediation and the performance as Arbitration and in accordance with Law 60/2003, of 23 December, of Arbitration, the functions that by royal decree are attributed to the solution of conflicts relating to the acquisition, hiring and defense of property rights Industrial in free disposal materials.

The third and fourth final provisions amend Law 17/2001 of 7 December of Marks and Law 20/2003 of 7 July of Legal Protection of Industrial Design in their respective first provisions, with (a) the purpose of expressly recognizing the jurisdiction of Community Trade Mark Courts in order to know of civil disputes when Community and national action is taken on a cumulative basis, the titles of which are identical or similar design and at least one of them is based on a Community title.

The Law is dictated by the powers that the Spanish Constitution attributes to the State in article 149.1.9. on legislation relating to industrial property and 149.1.6. on procedural law.

TITLE I

Preliminary Provisions

Article 1. Object of the Law.

For the protection of industrial inventions, the following Industrial Property titles shall be granted in accordance with the provisions of this Law:

a) Patents of invention.

b) Utility models.

(c) complementary certificates of protection of medicinal products and plant protection products.

Article 2. Patent Registration.

1. The registration of the titles recognized in this Law has a unique character throughout the Spanish territory and its concession corresponds to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, except as provided for in the international treaties in which Spain is a party or the right of the European Union.

2. The application, the concession and any other legal acts or acts affecting the rights of the securities referred to in the previous paragraph shall be entered in the Register of Patents, as provided for in this Law and in its Rules of Procedure.

3. The registration in the Register of Patents shall legitimize its holder to exercise the actions recognized in this Law in defense of the rights derived from the titles mentioned in Article 1.

Article 3. Legitimization.

1. Natural or legal persons, including entities governed by public law, may apply for Industrial Property titles.

2. The persons referred to in paragraph 1 may invoke the application for the benefit of the provisions of any international treaty which is applicable in Spain as soon as they are directly applicable to them, in whatever other favorable to the provisions of this Law.

TITLE II

Patentability

Article 4. Patentable inventions.

1. They are patentable, in all fields of technology, inventions that are new, involve inventive activity and are susceptible to industrial application.

The inventions referred to in the preceding paragraph may be intended for a product composed of biological material or containing biological material, or a process by which it is produced, processed or used biological.

2. The biological material isolated from its natural environment or produced by means of a technical process may be the subject of an invention, even if it already exists in the natural state.

3. For the purposes of this Law, "biological material" means matter containing self-reproducible or reproducible genetic information in a biological system and by "microbiological procedure" any procedure that uses a microbiological matter, including an intervention on the microbiological material or producing a microbiological material.

4. The following paragraphs shall not be considered to be inventions, in particular:

a) Discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods.

b) Literary works, artistic works or any other aesthetic creation, as well as scientific works.

c) Plans, rules and methods for the exercise of intellectual activities, for games or for economic-commercial activities, as well as computer programs.

d) Ways to present information.

5. The provisions of the above paragraph exclude the patentability of the materials or activities mentioned therein only to the extent that the patent application or the patent relates exclusively to one of them considered as such.

Article 5. Exceptions to patentability.

Cannot be patent object:

1. Inventions the commercial exploitation of which is contrary to public order or to good customs, without the exploitation of an invention being considered as such by the mere fact that it is prohibited by a legal or regulatory provision.

In particular, they shall not be considered to be patentable under the provisions of the preceding paragraph:

a) Human cloning procedures.

b) The procedures for modifying the germination genetic identity of the human being.

c) Use of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes.

(d) the procedures for modifying the genetic identity of the animals which assume for these suffering without substantial medical or veterinary use for the man or the animal, and the animals resulting from such procedures.

2. Plant varieties and animal breeds. However, inventions which are intended for plant or animal purposes shall be patentable if the technical feasibility of the invention is not limited to a particular plant variety or animal breed.

3. The essentially biological procedures for obtaining plants or animals. For these purposes, procedures consisting entirely of natural phenomena such as crossing or selection shall be considered to be essentially biological.

The provisions of the preceding paragraph shall not affect the patentability of inventions the object of which is a microbiological procedure or any other technical procedure or product obtained by such procedures.

4. Methods of surgical or therapeutic treatment of the human or animal body, and methods of diagnosis applied to the human or animal body. This provision shall not apply to products, in particular to substances or compositions, or to inventions of apparatus or instruments for the implementation of such methods.

5. The human body in the different stages of its constitution and development, as well as the simple discovery of one of its elements, including the total or partial sequence of a gene.

However, an element isolated from the human body or otherwise obtained by means of a technical procedure, including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, may be regarded as a patentable invention, even in the case of the structure of that element is identical to that of a natural element.

The industrial application of a total or partial sequence of a gene must be explicitly stated in the patent application.

6. A mere sequence of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) without any indication of biological function.

Article 6. New.

1. An invention is considered to be new when it is not included in the state of the art.

2. The state of the art is constituted by everything that before the filing date of the patent application has been made accessible to the public in Spain or abroad by a written or oral description, by a use or by any other means.

3. It is also understood in the state of the art the content of the Spanish applications for patents or utility models, of applications for European patents designating Spain and of international patent applications PCT that have entered into national stage in Spain, as they have originally been submitted, the date of which is prior to the date referred to in the preceding paragraph and which have been published in Spanish on that date or in another later.

4. The provisions of paragraphs 2 and 3 shall not preclude the patentability of any substance or composition falling within the state of the art to be used in any of the methods referred to in Article 5.4 provided that it is used for any of those methods are not included in the state of the art.

5. The provisions of paragraphs 2 and 3 shall not preclude the patentability of a substance or composition as referred to in paragraph 4 for use in any of the methods referred to in Article 5.4 provided that such use does not is understood in the state of the art.

Article 7. Harmless disclosures.

It shall not be taken into account to determine the state of the art a disclosure of the invention which, occurring within six months prior to the date of submission of the application, has been a direct consequence or indirect:

(a) An obvious abuse against the applicant or his or her causative.

(b) The fact that the applicant or his causative has exhibited the invention in official or officially recognized exhibitions within the meaning of the Convention Relating to International Exhibitions, signed in Paris on November 1928 and last revised on November 30, 1972.

In this case it will be necessary for the applicant, when submitting the application, to declare that the invention has actually been exhibited and that, in support of his declaration, he will contribute the corresponding certificate within the period and under the conditions which are determined to be regulated.

Article 8. Inventive activity.

1. It is considered that an invention involves an inventive activity if the invention does not result from the state of the art in an obvious way for an expert in the field.

2. If the state of the art comprises documents referred to in Article 6.3, they shall not be taken into account in deciding on the existence of the inventive activity.

Article 9. Industrial application.

It is considered that an invention is susceptible to industrial application when its object can be manufactured or used in any kind of industry, including agriculture.

TITLE III

patent law and inventor's designation

Article 10. Right to the patent.

1. The right to the patent belongs to the inventor or his successors and is transmissible by all means that the right recognizes.

2. If the invention has been carried out by several persons together, the right to obtain the patent shall belong to all of them.

3. Where the same invention has been made by several persons independently, the right to the patent shall belong to that whose application has an earlier date of filing in Spain, provided that such application is published with pursuant to Article 37.

4. In the proceedings before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, the applicant is presumed to be entitled to exercise the right to the patent.

Article 11. Patent application per person not legitimized.

1. Where, on the basis of the provisions of this Law, a firm judgment has recognised the right to obtain the patent from a person other than the applicant, and provided that the patent has not yet been granted, that person may, within three months after the judgment has acquired the force of res judicata:

a) Continue the procedure relative to the request by subrogating to the place of the requester.

b) Submit a new patent application for the same invention that will enjoy the same priority.

c) Order the request to be denied.

2. The provisions of Article 26.3 apply to any new application submitted as set out in the previous paragraph.

3. The application for the judgment referred to in paragraph 1 shall not be withdrawn if the application for a patent is not withdrawn without the consent of the applicant. The Judge may agree, as a precautionary measure in accordance with the provisions of Law 1/2000, of 7 January, of Civil Procedure, the suspension of the concession procedure, once the application has been published, until the firmness of the judgment or judgment terminating the proceedings is duly notified, if the actor's claim is dismissed, or up to three months after such notification if it is estimated.

The suspension shall also be lifted provided that the resolution terminating the procedure is stowed and firm and the actor requests the continuation of the procedure.

Article 12. Claim of entitlement.

1. If the patent has been granted to a person not entitled to obtain it in accordance with the provisions of Article 10, the person entitled under that article may claim that the ownership of the patent is transferred to him, without prejudice of any other rights or actions that may correspond to it.

2. Where a person is entitled to only one part of the patent, he may claim to be granted the ownership of the patent in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.

3. The rights referred to in the preceding paragraphs shall be exercisable only within two years from the date on which the mention of the concession was published in the 'Official Journal of Industrial Property'. This period shall not apply if the holder, at the time of the grant or the acquisition of the patent, knew that he was not entitled to it.

4. It shall be the subject of entry in the Register of Patents, for the purposes of advertising against third parties, the filing of a judicial complaint for the exercise of the actions referred to in this Article, as well as the judgment or any other (a) a final decision terminating the proceedings initiated pursuant to that application, at the request of an interested party.

Article 13. Effects of the change of ownership.

1. Where a change in the ownership of an application or a patent as a result of a judgment of those provided for in the preceding article occurs, licences and other third party rights on the patent shall be extinguished by registration in the Patent Registry of the person entitled.

2. Both the holder of the application or the patent and the holder of a licence obtained before the filing of the court order is registered, which prior to that registration would have exploited the invention or made it actual and actual preparations for that purpose, may continue or start the operation provided that they apply for a non-exclusive licence to the new holder registered in the Patent Register, within two months if the previous holder is the holder of the licence. of the patent or, in the case of the licensee, four months after receipt of the notification of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office that communicates the registration of the new owner. The licence must be granted for an appropriate period and on reasonable terms, which shall be fixed, if necessary, by the procedure laid down in this Law for compulsory licences.

3. The provisions of the preceding paragraph do not apply if the holder of the patent or licence had acted in bad faith at the time the holding or preparations for the holding began.

Article 14. Designation of the inventor.

The inventor has, in front of the patent or patent application holder, the right to be mentioned as such an inventor in the patent.

TITLE IV

Inventions made in the framework of a employment or service relationship

Article 15. Inventions belonging to the employer.

1. Inventions made by the employee or service provider during the term of his contract or employment relationship or services with the employer which are the result of an explicit or implicitly constitutive research activity of the object of his contract belong to the employer.

2. The author of the invention shall not be entitled to an additional remuneration for its performance, except if his personal contribution to the invention and the importance of the invention to the employer clearly exceed the explicit or implicit in your contract or employment relationship.

Article 16. Inventions belonging to the employee or service provider.

The inventions in which the circumstances provided for in Article 15.1 do not exist belong to the author of the invention.

Article 17. Inventions assumed by the employer.

1. By way of derogation from Article 16, where the employee made an invention relating to his or her professional activity in the undertaking and in his/her acquisition, they had predominantly influenced knowledge acquired within the undertaking or the use of means provided by the employer, the employer shall have the right to take ownership of the invention or to reserve a right to use it.

2. Where the employer takes ownership of an invention or reserves the right to use it, the employee shall be entitled to fair economic compensation fixed in the light of the industrial and commercial importance of the invention and having the value of the means or knowledge provided by the company and the employee's own contributions. Such economic compensation may consist of a participation in the profits obtained by the undertaking from the holding or the transfer of its rights to that invention.

Article 18. Duty of information and exercise of rights by the employer and employee.

1. The employee who makes one of the inventions referred to in Articles 15 and 17 must inform the employer by written communication, with the information and reports necessary to enable him to exercise his rights. correspond. Such communication shall be made within one month from the date on which the invention is completed. Failure to comply with this obligation will result in the loss of the rights recognized to the employee in this Title.

2. In the case of an invention which is acceptable to the employer in accordance with the provisions of Article 17, the employer shall, within three months of the day following that of the receipt of the communication referred to in paragraph 1, The invention relates to the invention in question and to the use of the invention in writing in writing to the employee's willingness to assume ownership of the invention or to reserve a right to use it.

If the employer does not inform the employee of his or her willingness to take ownership of the invention within the prescribed time limits, his/her right may be expired, the employee being able to file the patent application.

If the employer, having communicated to the employee his/her willingness to assume ownership of the invention, does not submit the application for industrial property within a reasonable additional period fixed with the employee, he/she may be file the patent application in the name and on behalf of the employer.

3. Non-patentable technical improvements obtained by the employee in the course of the activities provided for in Articles 15 and 17 which, through their exploitation as an industrial secret, offer the employer an advantageous position similar to that obtained from from an industrial property right, they shall be entitled to claim from the employer a reasonable compensation fixed in accordance with the criteria set out in the articles referred to above as soon as the latter exploit the proposal.

4. Both the employer and the employee must cooperate to the extent necessary for the effectiveness of the rights recognised in this Title, by refraining from any action which may result in the detriment of such rights.

Article 19. Burden of proof and waiver of rights.

1. Unless proof to the contrary, the inventions for which a patent application or other exclusive protection title is filed within the year following the termination of the employment or service relationship is presumed to have been made during the validity of this.

2. Any advance waiver of the employee to the rights that the Law grants in this Title shall be void.

Article 20. Scope of application.

The rules of this Title shall also apply to officials, employees and workers of the State, Autonomous Communities, Provinces, Municipalities and other Public Entes, without prejudice to the provisions of this Article. next.

Article 21. Inventions made by the research staff of the Public Universities and Public Research Entes.

1. The inventions made by the research staff of the Centers and Public Research Bodies of the General Administration of the State, the Centers and Research Bodies of other Public Administrations, of the Universities Public, State Public Sector Foundations and State Mercantile Companies will belong to the entities whose investigators have obtained them in the exercise of their own functions, whatever the nature of the of the legal relationship by which they are linked to them.

For these purposes, it is considered in any case a personal investigator that is defined as such in article 13 of Law 14/2011, of 1 June, of Science, Technology and Innovation, the technical staff considered in this Law as research staff and technical support staff who, in accordance with the internal rules of universities and research centres, also have the consideration of research staff.

2. The inventions referred to in paragraph 1 shall be communicated in writing to the public entity whose service is the investigator of the invention within three months of the completion of the invention. The lack of communication by the investigating staff will lead to the loss of the rights recognised in the following paragraphs.

3. The body or the public body, within three months of receipt of the notification referred to in the preceding paragraph, shall communicate in writing to the author or authors of the invention their willingness to maintain their rights. the invention, requesting the corresponding patent, or considering it as an industrial secret, reserving the right to use it exclusively. The result of an investigation which may be patented before the time limit has elapsed or until the entity or the author has filed the patent application may not be published.

If the body or public entity does not communicate within the indicated period its willingness to maintain its rights to the invention, the author or authors of the invention may submit the patent application in accordance with the provisions of the Article 18.2.

4. The investigator shall, in any event, have the right to participate in the benefits obtained by the entities in which he provides his services from the holding or the transfer of his rights to such inventions, where the patent is applied for in the name of the entity or decide on industrial secrecy. These entities may also assign ownership of such inventions to the author of such inventions, reserving a non-exclusive, non-transferable and free operating licence or a participation of the profits obtained from the holding of those inventions determined in accordance with paragraphs 6 and 7.

5. In the case of contracts or agreements which the entities referred to in paragraph 1 shall conclude with public or private entities, it shall be stipulated to whom the ownership of the inventions which the investigating staff may carry out shall correspond to the such contracts or agreements, as well as all matters relating to the rights of use and commercial exploitation and the distribution of the profits obtained.

6. The Governing Council of the University shall determine the modalities and the amount of the participation of the university's research staff in the benefits obtained from the exploitation of the inventions referred to in this Article, and in their case, the participation of the University in the benefits obtained by the researcher with the exploitation of the same, without prejudice to the provisions of Article 83 of the Organic Law 6/2001, of 21 December, of Universities and in the Article 64 of Law 2/2011 of 4 March 2011 on Sustainable Economy.

7. The procedures and the amount of the participation of the research staff of the Public Research Ends in the benefits obtained from the exploitation or disposal of the inventions referred to in this Article shall be established by the Government. taking into account the specific characteristics of each Public Research Ente. This participation shall not in any case have any remuneration or salary. The Autonomous Communities will be able to develop specific schemes for participation in benefits for the research staff of Public Research Entes of their competence.

TITLE V

Grant Request and Procedure

CHAPTER I

Patent application presentation and requirements

Article 22. Submission of the application.

1. The patent application shall be filed with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office or the competent body of any Autonomous Community.

2. The patent application may also be filed in the places provided for in Article 38.4 of Law 30/1992 of 26 November 1992, of a Legal Regime of Public Administrations and of the Common Administrative Procedure, addressed to any of the the bodies which, in accordance with the preceding paragraph, are competent to receive the application.

3. The electronic submission of applications will be applicable to Law 11/2007, of June 22, of electronic access of citizens to Public Services.

Article 23. Requirements for the request.

1. The patent application shall contain:

a) An application instance, according to the official model, addressed to the Director of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

b) A description of the invention for which the patent is applied for.

c) One or more claims.

(d) The drawings to which the description or claims relate and, where appropriate, the biological sequences presented in the format to be established in regulation.

e) A summary of the invention.

2. Where the invention relates to biological material of plant or animal origin, the application must include the indication of its geographical origin or the source of origin of the matter if the data were known. This information shall not prejudice the validity of the patent.

In the cases provided for in Regulation (EU) No 511/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on measures for the compliance of users of the Nagoya Protocol on access to resources The application for a patent must also contain, in so far as it is determined, the information which the users of the patent may have, and the right to participate in the application of the patent application. resources are required to be retained in accordance with the provisions of the abovementioned rule. Such information shall also not prejudice the validity of the patent.

3. Both the application and the other documents to be submitted to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office must be in Spanish and comply with the requirements to be established. Without prejudice to Article 24.1.c), in the Autonomous Communities where another official language exists, such documents may be drawn up in that language and must be accompanied by the corresponding translation into Spanish, which shall be consider authentic in case of doubt between both.

4. The submission of the application shall give rise to the payment of the corresponding fee as well as the fee for the performance of the report on the state of the art.

Article 24. Date of presentation.

1. The date of submission of the application shall be that of the time when the applicant gives the authorised offices for the receipt of patent applications the documentation containing at least the following elements:

a) The indication that a patent is requested.

b) Information to identify the applicant and to contact him.

c) A description of the invention for which the patent is sought, even if it does not comply with the formal requirements set out in the Act, or the referral to a previously filed application.

For the purposes of obtaining a filing date, the description may be written in any language and the corresponding translation into Spanish must be submitted within the prescribed time limit.

2. The referral to a previous application must indicate the number of the application, its filing date and the office in which it has been filed. The reference shall be made on the basis of the reference to the description and, where appropriate, to the drawings.

3. If the application refers to an earlier application as provided for in the preceding paragraph, a certified copy of the previous application must be submitted, accompanied, where appropriate, by the corresponding translation into Spanish, within the time limit set in the execution rules.

4. The date of submission of applications lodged at a post office shall be the date on which the office receives the documents containing the elements referred to in the preceding paragraphs, provided that they are submitted by post. Article 31 of the Regulation governing the provision of postal services, approved by Royal Decree No 1829/1999 of 3 December 1999, has been certified in the form provided for in Article 31 of the Regulation. In any case, the documentation shall be addressed to the competent body to receive the application.

Article 25. Designation of the inventor.

The application must designate the inventor. In the event that the applicant is not the inventor or is not the sole inventor, the designation shall be accompanied by a declaration in which the applicant has acquired the right to the patent.

Article 26. Unit of invention.

1. The patent application may not comprise more than a single invention or a group of related inventions in such a way that they integrate a single general inventive concept.

2. Applications which do not comply with the provisions of the previous paragraph shall be divided in accordance with the provisions laid down in the Rules of Procedure.

3. Divisional applications shall have the same filing date as the initial application from which they are made, in so far as their object is already contained in that application.

Article 27. Description of the Invention.

1. The invention should be described in the patent application in a sufficiently clear and complete manner so that an expert on the matter can execute it.

2. When the invention relates to a biological material which is not accessible to the public, or to its use, and when the biological material cannot be described in the patent application in such a way that an expert can reproduce the invention, it only consider that the description complies with the provisions of the previous paragraph if the following requirements are met, as they have been developed in a regulated manner:

(a) that the biological material has been deposited no later than the date of filing of the patent application in a legally recognized institution for this purpose, under conditions equal to those established by the Treaty of Budapest, on the international recognition of the deposit of micro-organisms for the purposes of the patent procedure, made in Budapest on 28 April 1977 (hereinafter referred to as the Budapest Treaty). In any event, the international depositary authorities which have acquired such a rank in accordance with Article 7 of that Treaty shall be deemed to have been recognised.

b) That the application, as presented, contains the relevant information available to the applicant on the characteristics of the biological material deposited.

(c) The name of the deposit institution and the number of the deposit institution shall be indicated in accordance with the provisions of the Regulation.

3. If the biological material deposited in accordance with the provisions of the previous paragraph is no longer available at the recognised deposit institution, a new deposit of that matter shall be authorised, under conditions similar to those laid down in the Treaty of Budapest.

4. Any new deposit must be accompanied by a declaration signed by the depositor certifying that the biological material subject to the new deposit is the same as initially deposited.

Article 28. Claims.

The claims define the object for which protection is requested. They must be clear and concise and must be based on the description.

Article 29. Summary.

The summary of the invention will serve exclusively for a purpose of technical information. It may not be taken into consideration for any other purpose, and in particular it may not be used for the purposes of determining the scope of the protection sought, nor for the purpose of delimiting the state of the art for the purposes of the provisions of the Article 6.3.

Article 30. Priority.

1. Those who have submitted a first application for a patent of invention, utility model, or certificate of use in or for one of the States party to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, made in Paris on 20 March 1883 or the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization, or its successors in title, shall, for the filing of a patent application in Spain on the same invention, enjoy a right of priority of 12 months from the date of filing of such first application, national or foreign, in the conditions laid down in Article 4 of the Paris Convention.

2. They shall have the same right of priority referred to in the preceding paragraph as those who have submitted a first application for protection in or for a State not referred to in paragraph 1 which recognises applications lodged in Spain of priority under conditions and with effects equivalent to those provided for in the Paris Convention.

3. By virtue of the exercise of the right of priority, the date of submission of the application, the date of submission of the earlier application, the priority of which has been given, shall be deemed to be the date of submission of the application for the purposes of Articles 6, 10 and 139. validly claimed.

Article 31. Priority claim.

1. The applicant who wishes to claim the priority of an earlier application must submit a declaration of priority and a copy certified by the office of origin of the application in the form and time-limits to be laid down. was accompanied by its translation into Spanish when it is written in another language.

2. The submission of the copy of the previous application or of the translation shall not be necessary where the claim of priority is not considered relevant for determining the patentability of the invention, or the previous application or its translation is already held by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office or available in a digital library.

3. For the same application and, where appropriate, for the same claim, multiple priorities may be claimed, even if they originate in different States. If multiple priorities are claimed, deadlines to be computed from the priority date will be counted from the earliest priority date.

4. Where one or more priorities are claimed, the right of priority shall only cover the elements of the application which are contained in the application or applications whose priority has been claimed.

5. Even if certain elements of the invention for which the priority is claimed are not included in the claims made in the previous application, the priority may be given to them if the whole of the documents of that Previous application reveals in a sufficiently clear and precise manner such elements.

6. The priority claim will involve the payment of the corresponding fee.

CHAPTER II

Concession Procedure

Article 32. Receipt of the request and referral to the OEPM.

1. The competent body as provided for in Article 22 shall record at the time of receipt of the application its registration number, the day, the hour and the minute of its submission, and shall issue a proof receipt or stamped copy of the documentation. presented in the form which it is determined to regulate. If the time has not been recorded, the last of the day will be assigned to you. If the minute has not been entered, the last minute will be assigned to it.

2. Where the body responsible for receiving the application is from an Autonomous Community, it shall forward to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office the documentation submitted within three days of its receipt. Failure to comply with this deadline shall in no case prejudice the applicant.

Article 33. Set date for submission and admission to processing.

1. Within 10 days of its receipt, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall check whether the patent application complies with the requirements for a filing date and, if so, to accept it and proceed with an agreement with the provisions of Article 34.

2. If any of the requirements necessary to obtain the date of submission are missing, the defects shall be notified to the person concerned for the purpose of the submission within the prescribed time limit. The filing date will be in that case the time when the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office receives the documentation with the defects duly corrected. If the defects are not remedied in time, the application shall not be admissible and shall be communicated to the applicant, with indication of the reasons.

3. If the application fee and the fee for carrying out the report on the state of the art have not been paid with the application, or have not been in full, this circumstance shall be notified to the applicant for completion or completion. payment within the prescribed period. After that period without making or completing the payment, you will be given a withdrawal from the application.

4. The time limits referred to in the preceding paragraphs are those set out in the Implementing Regulation of this Law.

Article 34. Patents of interest to the national defense.

The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will make available to the Ministry of Defense, for the purposes of Title XI of this Law, all patent applications that may be of interest to the national defense, establishing for this the necessary coordination with the Ministry.

Article 35. Ex officio examination.

1. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will verify that the application is processed:

(a) If the object of the same is not manifestly and in its entirety excluded from patentability by application of Articles 4.4 and 5 of this Law.

(b) If the requirements relating to the representation and the claim of priority are fulfilled, as well as any other referring to the formal regularity of the application whose verification must be carried out, according to as set out in the Regulation, prior to the publication of the application.

2. The presence of formal defects in the documentation shall not suspend the performance of the report on the state of the art referred to in the following Article, provided that those are not of such a nature as to prevent their performance.

3. If it appears from the verification that the subject of the application is excluded from patentability under paragraph 1.a), or the requirements referred to in paragraph 1 (b) are not fulfilled, the person concerned shall be notified of these circumstances. claims or damages the defects within the prescribed period. If the obstacles persist or the defects are not corrected in time, the application shall be refused by means of a reasoned decision. Where defects relate to the right of priority, the applicant shall lose this right.

Article 36. Report on the state of the art and written opinion.

1. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall issue a report on the state of the art and a written, preliminary and non-binding opinion on the patent application, as laid down in the regulations, on the basis of the claims, taking due account of the description and, where appropriate, the biological drawings or sequences. Both the report on the state of the art and the written opinion shall be transferred to the applicant.

2. The report on the state of the art shall be based on a search which, in accordance with the provisions of Article 6.2 of this Law, shall extend to all that has been made accessible to the public in Spain or abroad by a description written or oral, by a use or by any other means.

3. Where the lack of clarity or consistency of the description or the claims prevents all or part of the preparation of the report, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall notify the applicant in good time to (a) make its claims or remedy the defects within the prescribed time limit. In order to remedy the defects, the applicant may modify the claims. If the applicant does not respond within the prescribed period, or does not require the object of the search to the extent sufficient to remedy the defects identified, the Office shall make a report on the state of the art based on a partial search. If this is not possible, the application shall be refused by means of a reasoned decision, and shall be notified to it.

4. If the unit of invention is lacking and the applicant, at the request of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, does not divide his or her application or does not pay any additional fees, the procedure shall continue for the invention or group of inventions claimed in the first place. place which satisfies the conditions of Article 26, giving it a withdrawal from the other conditions.

5. The report on the state of the art and written opinion shall not be the subject of the written opinion of the applications whose international search report has been carried out by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office in its capacity as the international search.

Article 37. Publishing the request and report.

1. After eighteen months from the date of submission of the application or from the date of priority which the examination of its own office has claimed and exceeded, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall publish as soon as possible the application for patent, making the corresponding announcement in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property" and making available to the public the documents in the file of the published patent application. A prospectus shall also be published containing the text of the description with the claims and, where appropriate, the drawings or biological sequences, in the form and with the elements to be laid down in the Implementing Regulation.

2. The patent application may be published at the request of the applicant, even if the time limit referred to in paragraph 1 has not elapsed.

3. Publication shall not take place where the application has been refused, or is deemed to be withdrawn or withdrawn, or has been withdrawn by the applicant before the technical preparations for publication have been completed.

4. The report on the state of the art will be published, making the corresponding announcement in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property", and issuing a prospectus with such a report together with the patent application or later, if there is has already been published.

Article 38. Third party comments.

Once the application has been published, any person may make duly reasoned and documented observations on the patentability of the invention which is the subject of the application in the form and time limit which it establishes, without the processing is interrupted. These third parties will not be considered part of the procedure.

Article 39. Substantive examination.

1. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall examine, upon request of the applicant and in accordance with the provisions of the Regulation, whether the application for a patent and the subject-matter of the application comply with the formal, technical and patentability established in the Law.

2. The request, which may be made by the applicant from the time of deposit of the application, shall be submitted, in any event, before the three-month period following the publication of the report on the state of the art has elapsed. shall be deemed to have been carried out until the examination fee has been paid. The revocation of the examination request shall be equivalent to the withdrawal of the patent application.

3. In addition to the request for substantive examination, the applicant may submit observations to the report on the state of the art, the written opinion and the observations of third parties and modify, if appropriate, the claims and the other documents of the application subject to the provisions of Article 48.

4. After the period referred to in paragraph 2 has elapsed without the applicant submitting his request for examination, his application shall be deemed to have been withdrawn.

Article 40. Processing and resolution.

1. Where the examination does not reveal the absence of any requirement to prevent it, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall grant the requested patent.

2. If, as a result of the examination, reasons which prevent all or part of the grant of the patent are assessed, they shall be communicated to the applicant so that, within the prescribed period, he shall reply to the objections raised by the Office. Spanish Patent and Trademark or modify, if appropriate, the claims.

3. If the applicant does not perform any act to avoid the objections raised by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, the patent must be denied. In other cases, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall decide upon receipt of the applicant's reply.

4. If the applicant's reply has been received, and in spite of the allegations or modifications made, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office considers that there are still grounds which prevent all or part of the grant of the patent from being communicated to the applicant. (a) to the applicant giving him new opportunities to correct his application or to make claims, under the conditions and time limits laid down in the Regulation, before definitively resolving the grant or refusal of the patent.

Article 41. Notice of the granting and publication of the patent.

The grant of the patent will be announced in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property", making available to the public the documents in the file of the granted patent.

Article 42. Issue of the patent prospectus.

For each patent granted, a prospectus shall be published containing the text of the description, with the claims and drawings and, where applicable, the biological sequences, as finally granted. The prospectus, the content of which shall be established in a regulation, shall also mention the 'Official Journal of Industrial Property' in which the concession was announced.

In the prospectus, it shall be stated that the patent is granted without prejudice to the third and no guarantee of the State as to the validity of the patent and the usefulness of the object on which it falls.

CHAPTER III

Oppositions and resources

Article 43. Oppositions.

1. Within six months of the publication of the concession in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property", any person may object to the concession for any of the following reasons:

a) The claimed invention does not meet any of the patentability requirements set out in Title II of this Act.

b) Your description is not clear enough and complete so that an expert in the field can execute it.

c) The object of the granted patent exceeds the content of the application as presented.

2. The opposition shall be sent to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office in writing, together with the relevant evidence and prior payment of the corresponding fee.

3. The registered patent holder shall be notified of the application of the registered patent in order to present his or her claims and modify, if appropriate, the claims. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall transfer to each of the parties to the arguments and proposals for amendments submitted by the other, granting them a reply procedure in each case, all within the time limits and conditions laid down in the regulation.

4. After the time limits referred to in the preceding paragraph, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall, in all or part of the objections submitted, decide, in respect of any of the grounds of objection referred to in paragraph 1, or destimandolas otherwise. However, where, in spite of the modifications or claims made, there are grounds for preventing all or part of the maintenance of the patent, the holder shall be given at least one opportunity to remedy the defect, or to submit new claims, prior to the final settlement of the proposed opposition.

5. The resolution of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will be published in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property", collecting, if necessary, the modifications that would have been made to the patent. The protection conferred by this Law shall be extended retroactively to the patent as amended.

6. The retroactive effect of the revocation shall be applied, where appropriate, to the provisions of Article 104 in respect of nullity.

Article 44. Resources.

1. The administrative action against the granting of a patent may be brought only by those who have been party to an opposition procedure and shall be directed against the decision of the opposition in question. To this effect, the opposition may be deemed to be rejected if the time limit for resolving it and notifying it has not been expressed.

2. The applicant for a patent may lodge an administrative appeal against the rejection of the patent application by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

3. In the appeal proceedings, the patent holder may amend the application subject to the provisions of Article 48.

CHAPTER IV

Complementary certificates of protection of medicinal products and plant protection products

Article 45. Requests.

1. Applications for supplementary certificates for the protection of medicinal products, the extension of their extension, and the applications for supplementary protection certificates for plant protection products, shall be sent to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office. standard model made available to users by the Office in which the declarations and data provided for in Community legislation are to be recorded as they have been regulated.

2. Applications for supplementary protection certificates and their extension shall be subject to the payment of the corresponding fee.

Article 46. Processing.

1. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall check whether the application for a certificate and the product to which it relates, or the extension of its application, comply with the requirements laid down in Community legislation. The Office shall not investigate ex officio whether the marketing authorisation is the first as a medicinal product or plant protection product in the European Union.

2. If the application and the product covered by the certificate or its extension comply with the conditions laid down in Community legislation, the Office shall grant them. If not, the defects shall be communicated to the applicant for submission to the applicant or to make his observations within the time limit laid down. Where the defects are not corrected in time and the Office considers that the objections identified in the notification persist, the application shall be refused.

Both the application and the final resolution will be published in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property", according to what is currently available. Appeals may be brought against the decisions of the Office in accordance with the provisions of the legal system of public administrations, and of the Common Administrative Procedure and the first provision of this Law.

Article 47. Maintenance.

The maintenance fee for the supplementary protection certificate shall be carried out in a single payment, the amount of which shall be fixed according to the duration of the certificate.

CHAPTER V

Provisions common to all third party procedures and information

Article 48. Modifications.

1. Except in cases where there are obvious errors, the person concerned may only modify the claims in those proceedings of the concession procedure in which this Law so permits, and subject to the conditions laid down in this Law. Regulation. The possibility of modifying the claims includes modifying the description and, where applicable, the drawings or biological sequences.

2. The applicant may modify the claims, as provided for in the previous paragraph, without the need for the consent of those who have registered rights on their application in the Patent Registry.

3. Any amendment shall be accompanied by a document in which the applicant specifies the differences between the new text and the replaced text indicating the reason for the amendments and the scope of the amendments.

4. Where the patent has been amended as a result of an opposition, limitation or appeal proceedings or a judicial decision, a new prospectus shall be published, which shall contain the full text of the patent document as it stands. as amended by the provisions of Article 43.5.

In the absence of payment of the fee the patent will not produce effects. If the procedure is a limitation procedure, it will be unrealized.

5. The patent or patent application may not be modified in such a way that its object exceeds the content of the application as originally submitted.

6. In the case of the opposition, or in the case of a limitation, the patent may not be amended in such a way as to extend the protection conferred by it.

Article 49. Error rectification.

At the request of the applicant the modifications of the defects of expression or transcription or of the errors contained in any document of the application will be allowed subject to the limitations established regulentarily. However, if the request for rectification concerns the description, the claims, the drawings or the biological sequences, the correction must be evident in the sense that it is immediately deducted from any other text, drawing or sequence that the result of the modification may have been proposed by the applicant.

Article 50. Suspension of procedures.

The presence of defects in the documentation will interrupt the procedure since the applicant is notified of the existence of the defects, by means of the corresponding suspense in the processing, until such defects are remedied. or expire the deadline for this.

Article 51. Mode change.

1. At any time prior to the completion of the substantive examination provided for in Article 39, the person concerned may request the conversion of his application so that the object of the application is protected under a different title Industrial.

2. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, as a result of the examination to be carried out pursuant to Articles 35 and 40, may propose to the person concerned the change of modality of the application. The applicant may accept or reject the proposal, in the understanding that it rejects the proposal if the change of modality is not expressly requested by the Regulation within the time limit laid down in the Regulation.

If the proposal is rejected it will continue processing the case in the requested mode.

3. In the event that the applicant requests the change of modality, the change shall be agreed, notifying the documents to be submitted within the time limit laid down for the new procedure to be submitted to the applicant. In the absence of timely submission of the new documentation you will have to be withdrawn and you will be notified.

4. When the resolution agreeing to the change of modality occurs after the publication of the patent application, it must be published in the "Official Industrial Property Bulletin".

Article 52. Withdrawal of the request.

1. The patent application may be withdrawn by the applicant at any time before the patent is granted.

2. When entered in the Register of Patent third parties on the application, the application may be withdrawn only with the consent of the holders of such rights.

Article 53. Reestablishing rights.

1. The applicant or the holder of a patent or any other party to a procedure which, having demonstrated all the due diligence required by the circumstances, could not have complied with a period of time in any of the procedures provided for in that procedure. Law shall, upon request, be restored to its rights if the omission of the law or its Rules of Procedure would have resulted in the direct consequence of the loss of a right. Where the time limit corresponds to the interposition of an appeal, it shall have the effect of its admission to proceedings, except as provided for in paragraph 5

2. The request shall be submitted in writing within the time limit set out first of the following:

i) two months counted from cessation of impairment;

(ii) 12 months from the date of expiry of the omitted procedure or, where a request is related to the non-payment of a maintenance fee, twelve months from the date of expiry of the period of six months ' payment with surcharges referred to in Article 185.

The violation must be completed within that period. However, where the restoration of rights is requested by the time limit laid down in Article 30, the request shall be submitted within two months of the date of expiry of the request or before the final preparations have been completed. technical details of the publication of the subsequent application, with the expiry of the period expiring.

3. The request shall be reasoned, indicating the facts and the justifications to be relied on in support of the request. It will only be presented when the rate of reestablishment of rights has been paid.

4. It shall be competent to resolve the request by the body to act on the act which has not been complied with.

5. The provisions of this Article shall not apply to the time limits referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article and Articles 43.1 and 144. They shall not apply either to the time limit for the administrative appeal against a declaration of rights.

6. The holder of the application or of the register restored to his rights shall not be entitled to invoke the rights in respect of a third party who, in good faith, in the period between the loss of the right and the publication of the reference to the restoration of that right, have begun to exploit the invention subject to the application or the patent, or have made serious and effective preparations for that purpose, provided that the third party is limited to initiating or continuing such exploitation in his undertaking or for the purposes of the needs of your company.

7. The third party who may benefit from the right to continue or initiate the operation of the invention provided for in paragraph 6, or the third party, may lodge an appeal against the decision which restores his rights to the applicant. in respect of whom the earlier rights deriving from the application for the restoration of rights may be invoked.

8. The rights restoration resolution will be entered in the Patent Register and published in the "Official Industrial Property Bulletin".

Article 54. Review of acts on administrative and administrative matters.

1. The acts and resolutions issued by the organs of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall be subject to the provisions of this Law and Law No 30/1992 of 26 November of the Legal Regime of Public Administrations. of the Common Administrative Procedure.

2. Decisions of the administrative resources of the competent bodies of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office that end the administrative route shall be subject to the Administrative-Administrative Jurisdiction.

3. In the face of the decision to grant a patent, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office may not exercise, on its own initiative or at the request of a party, the review authority provided for in Article 102 of Law 30/1992, of 26 November, if the The patent is based on one of the causes provided for in Article 102 of this Law. Such grounds of invalidity may only be brought before the courts.

Article 55. Case query.

1. Files relating to patent applications, utility models or supplementary protection certificates not yet published may only be consulted with the consent of the applicant. After publication they may be consulted subject to the conditions laid down in the regulations.

2. Anyone who proves that the applicant for a patent, a utility model or a supplementary protection certificate has sought to enforce the rights arising from his application may consult the file before his/her application. publication without the consent of the applicant.

3. Where a divisional application is published, a new application for a patent filed under Article 11.1 or the application for a change in the mode of protection as laid down in Article 51 shall apply. Person may consult the file of the initial application before publication and without the consent of the applicant.

4. Files relating to applications which have been refused, withdrawn or withdrawn before publication shall not be accessible to the public.

5. In the event that one of the applications referred to in the previous paragraph is resubmitted, it shall be considered as a new application without prejudice to the possible right of priority which may be derived from the previous application.

Article 56. Accessibility of biological matter.

1. The deposited biological material referred to in Article 27 shall be accessible:

(a) Before the first publication of the patent application, only to whom it has the right to consult the file in accordance with the provisions of the previous article.

(b) Between the first publication of the application and the grant of the patent, any person who requests it or only an independent expert if the patent applicant so requests.

c) After the grant of the patent, and even if the patent expires or is cancelled, to any person who requests it.

2. Access shall be carried out by the delivery of a sample of the biological material deposited, provided that the person requesting it is committed while the effects of the patent are lasting:

(a) Not to supply third parties with any sample of the biological material deposited or a material derived therefrom, and

(b) Not to use any of the biological material deposited, or derived therefrom, except for experimental purposes, unless the applicant or the patent holder expressly disclaims such a commitment.

3. In the event of refusal or withdrawal of the application, the access to the deposited material shall be limited, at the request of the applicant and for 20 years from the date of the filing of the patent application, to an expert independent. In this case, the provisions of paragraph 2 shall apply.

4. The requests of the applicant referred to in paragraph 1 (b) and paragraph 3 may only be submitted until the date on which the technical preparations for the publication of the patent application are deemed to have been completed.

Article 57. Obligation to provide information to third parties.

1. Anyone seeking to assert against a third party rights arising from a patent application or a patent already granted must make the number of the patent application known.

2. Anyone who includes in a product, on their labels or packaging, or in any kind of advertisement or form, any particulars intended to produce the impression that there is protection of a patent application or a patent already granted must record the number of the same.

TITLE VI

Patent and patent application effects

Article 58. Duration and computation of effects.

The patent has a duration of twenty years unextendable, counted from the filing date of the application and produces its effects from the day the mention of what has been granted is published.

Article 59. Prohibition of direct exploitation of the invention.

1. The patent confers on its holder the right to prevent any third party who does not have their consent:

(a) Manufacturing, offering for sale, introduction into trade or use of a product covered by the patent or import or possession of the product for any of the purposes mentioned.

b) The use of a procedure that is the subject of the patent or the offer of such use, when the third party knows, or the circumstances make it clear that the use of the procedure is prohibited without the consent of the patent holder.

c) The offer for sale, the introduction into the trade or the use of the product directly obtained by the procedure which is the object of the patent or the import or possession of said product for any of the purposes mentioned.

2. Where the patent has for the purpose a biological material which, by virtue of the invention, has certain properties, the rights conferred by the patent shall be extended to any biological material obtained from the biological material patented by reproduction or multiplication, in an identical or differentiated form and having those same properties.

3. Where the patent has the object of a procedure for producing a biological material which, by virtue of the invention, has certain properties, the rights conferred by the patent shall be extended to the biological matter directly obtained by the patented process and any other biological material obtained from it by reproduction or multiplication, in identical or differentiated form, and which has the same properties.

4. Where the patent relates to a product containing genetic information or consisting of genetic information, the rights conferred by the patent shall be extended, without prejudice to the provisions of Article 5 (4), to all matters relating to the product is incorporated and the genetic information is contained and exercised.

Article 60. Prohibition of indirect exploitation of the invention.

1. The patent also confers on its holder the right to prevent any third party from giving or offering to provide means for the implementation of the patented invention relating to an essential element of the same to persons without their consent. not enabled to exploit it, when the third party knows or the circumstances make it clear that such means are suitable for the implementation of the invention and are intended for it.

2. The provisions of the above paragraph are not applicable where the means to which the third paragraph refers are products which are currently in trade, unless the third party has the effect of inciting the person to whom he or she carries out the prohibited in the previous article.

3. They do not have the consideration of persons entitled to exploit the patented invention, within the meaning of paragraph 1, who perform the acts provided for in paragraphs (a) to (d) of the following Article.

Article 61. General limits and exhaustion of patent law.

1. The rights conferred by the patent do not extend:

a) To acts performed in a private and for non-commercial purposes.

b) To acts performed for experimental purposes that refer to the object of the patented invention.

(c) To carry out the studies and tests necessary to obtain the authorization to place medicinal products on the market in Spain or outside Spain, and the consequent practical requirements, including preparation, procurement and use of the active substance for these purposes.

(d) To the preparation of medicinal products performed at pharmacies extemporaneously and per unit in execution of a medical prescription or to the acts relating to the medicinal products thus prepared.

e) To the use of the object of the patented invention on board ships of countries of the Union of Paris for the protection of Industrial Property, in the body of the vessel, in machines, in the apparatus and in the apparatus other accessories, when these vessels enter the Spanish waters temporarily or accidentally, provided that the object of the invention is used exclusively for the needs of the vessel.

(f) The use of the object of the invention patented in the construction or operation of means of locomotion, aerial or terrestrial, belonging to the member countries of the Union of Paris for the protection of the Industrial Property or of the accessories thereof, when those means of locomotion penetrate temporarily or accidentally in the Spanish territory.

(g) To the acts provided for in Article 27 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, made in Chicago on 7 December 1944, when such acts relate to aircraft of a State to which the provisions apply. of that article.

2. The rights conferred by the patent do not extend to acts relating to a product protected by it after that product has been placed in trade in the European Economic Area by the holder of the patent or with his consent. unless there are legitimate grounds for the patent holder to object to the subsequent placing on the market of the product.

3. The rights conferred by the patent shall not extend to acts relating to biological material obtained by reproduction or multiplication of a protected biological material subject to the patent, after it has been placed on the market in the European Economic Area by the holder of the patent or with his consent, where the reproduction or multiplication is the necessary result of the use for which the biological material has been placed on the market, and provided that the material obtained is not subsequently used for new reproductions or multiplications.

This limitation shall not apply where there are legitimate grounds for the patent holder to object to the subsequent marketing of the biological material.

Article 62. Derogations from the farmer and farmer.

1. By way of derogation from Article 59, the sale or any other form of marketing of plant reproductive material carried out by the proprietor of the patent or with his consent to a farmer for agricultural holding shall involve the the right of the latter to use the product of his harvest for further reproduction or multiplication carried out by himself on his own holding. The scope and modalities of this derogation shall correspond to those provided for in Article 14 of Council Regulation (EC) No 2100/94 of 27 July on the Community protection of plant variety rights and Law No 3/2000 of 7 March 2000. January, the legal regime for the protection of plant variety rights.

2. By way of derogation from Article 59, the sale or any other form of placing on the market of breeding animals or animal reproductive material carried out by the holder of the patent or with his consent to a farmer or a farmer shall involve the authorisation of the latter to use livestock protected for agricultural or livestock purposes. This shall include the making available of livestock or other animal reproductive material in order to enable the farmer or farmer to continue his agricultural or livestock farming activity, but not to sell it in the context of a commercial reproduction activity or that purpose. The scope and modalities of this derogation shall correspond to those that are to be regulated.

Article 63. Rights derived from the previous use.

1. The owner of a patent has no right to prevent those who in good faith and prior to the date of priority of the patent from having been exploiting in Spain what is to constitute the object of the patent, or have made preparations serious and effective to exploit this object, continue or initiate its exploitation in the same way as they were doing until then or for which they had made the preparations and to the appropriate extent to meet the reasonable needs of your company. The exploitation rights are only transmissible together with the companies that come to them.

2. The rights conferred by the patent do not extend to acts relating to a product covered by it after that product has been placed in trade by the person enjoying the right of exploitation established in the previous.

Article 64. Lack of coverage against previous patents.

The owner of a patent may not invoke it to defend itself against actions directed against him for infringement of other patents that have a priority date prior to his.

Article 65. Dependent patents.

The fact that the invention relates to a patent cannot be exploited without using the invention protected by a previous patent belonging to a different owner shall not be an obstacle to the validity of that patent. In this case neither the holder of the previous patent may exploit the subsequent patent during the validity of the patent without the consent of its owner, nor can the holder of the subsequent patent exploit any of the two patents during the validity of the patent. previous patent, unless it has the consent of the owner of the same or has had a compulsory license.

Article 66. Legal limitations.

The exploitation of the object of a patent may not be carried out in an abusive manner or contrary to the law, morality, public order or public health, and shall be subject, in any case, to prohibitions or limitations, temporary or undefined, established or established by legal provisions.

Article 67. Provisional protection.

1. From the date of its publication, the patent application confers on its holder a provisional protection consistent with the right to demand compensation, reasonable and appropriate to the circumstances, from any third party who, between that the date and date of publication of the indication that the patent has been granted would have carried out a use of the invention that after that period would be prohibited under the patent.

2. Such provisional protection shall be applicable even before the publication of the application in respect of the person to whom the presentation and the content of the application have been notified.

3. Where the object of the patent application is constituted by a procedure relating to a micro-organism, provisional protection shall only commence since the micro-organism has been made accessible to the public.

4. It is understood that the patent application has never had the effects provided for in the preceding paragraphs where it has been or is considered to be withdrawn, or where it has been refused or revoked under a firm resolution.

Article 68. Scope of protection.

1. The scope of the protection conferred by the patent or the patent application is determined by the claims. The description and drawings will serve to interpret the claims.

2. For the period prior to the granting of the patent, the scope of the protection shall be determined by the claims of the application, as published. However, the patent, as it would have been granted, or amended in the course of a procedure of opposition, appeal, limitation or invalidity, shall determine the protection referred to retroactively, provided that such protection does not exist. extended result.

3. In order to determine the extent of protection under paragraphs 1 and 2 above, due account shall be taken of any element equivalent to an element indicated in the claims.

Article 69. Scope of protection in procedural patents.

1. Where a product is introduced in Spain in respect of which there is a patent for the manufacture of that product, the holder of the patent shall have in respect of the product introduced the same rights as this Law. grants in relation to products manufactured in Spain.

2. If a patent has as its object a procedure for the manufacture of new products or substances, it is presumed, unless proof to the contrary, that any product or substance of the same characteristics has been obtained by the patented process.

3. In the practice of the proceedings for proof to the contrary provided for in the previous paragraph, the legitimate interests of the defendant shall be taken into consideration for the protection of their business and manufacturing secrets.

TITLE VII

Shares for violation of patent law

Article 70. Defense of the right.

The holder of a patent may exercise before the judicial organs the actions that correspond, whatever his class and nature, against those who injure his right and demand the necessary measures for his or her safeguard.

Article 71. Civil actions.

1. The holder whose patent rights are injured may, in particular, apply for:

a) The cessation of acts that violate their rights, or their prohibition if they have not yet been produced.

b) Compensation for damages suffered.

(c) The seizure of objects produced or imported in violation of their rights and of the means exclusively intended for such production or the conduct of the patented process.

(d) the attribution of the objects or means seized under the provisions of the preceding paragraph where possible, in which case the value of the goods concerned shall be imputed to the amount of the compensation for damages; and damages. If the value referred to above exceeds the amount of the allowance granted, the owner of the patent shall compensate the other party for the excess.

e) The adoption of the necessary measures to prevent the continuation of the infringement of the patent and, in particular, the transformation of the objects or means seized pursuant to the provisions of paragraph (c), or their destruction when this is essential to prevent infringement of the patent.

f) Exceptionally the court may also, at the request of the proprietor of the patent, order the publication of the judgment of the offender of the patent, at the expense of the sentenced person, by means of notices and notices the persons concerned.

The measures referred to in paragraphs (c) and (e) shall be executed by the infringer, unless justified reasons are alleged to be so.

2. The measures referred to in paragraphs (a) and (e) of the preceding paragraph may also be requested, where appropriate, against intermediaries whose services a third party uses to infringe patent rights, even if the acts of such Intermediaries do not themselves constitute an infringement, without prejudice to the provisions of Law 34/2002 of 11 July on the services of the information society and electronic commerce. Such measures shall be objective, proportionate and non-discriminatory.

Article 72. Damage and damage compensation budgets.

1. Who, without the consent of the patent holder, manufactures, imports objects protected by it or uses the patented procedure, shall in any case be obliged to respond to the damages caused.

2. All those who perform any other act of exploitation of the object protected by the patent will only be required to indemnify the damages caused if they have acted knowingly or by mediating guilt or negligence. In any event, it shall be understood that the offender has acted knowingly if he has been warned by the patent holder about the existence of the patent, properly identified and its infringement, with the requirement that they cease in the same.

Article 73. Exhibition of documents for the calculation of compensation.

1. In order to fix the amount of damages suffered by the unauthorized exploitation of the invention, the patent holder may require the display of the documents of the person responsible for the purpose.

2. In the execution of this measure, the legitimate interests of the defendant shall be taken into consideration for the protection of his business secrets of manufacture and business, without prejudice to the right of the owner of the patent to have the information necessary in order to be able to give effect to the extent of the compensation in favour of it where the investigation into these effects is carried out at the stage of the implementation of the judgment on the substance which has assessed the existence of the infringement.

Article 74. Calculation of damages and periodic penalty payments.

1. The compensation for damages due to the owner of the patent shall include not only the value of the loss he has suffered, but also the value of the gain that the holder has ceased to obtain because of the violation of his right. The amount of compensation may include, where appropriate, the research expenditure incurred in order to obtain reasonable evidence from the commission of the infringement which is the subject of the judicial procedure.

2. In order to fix the compensation for damages, account shall be taken of the injured party:

(a) The negative economic consequences, including the benefits that the operator would have been expected to derive from the exploitation of the patented invention if there had not been competition from the infringer or alternatively, the benefits that the latter has obtained from the exploitation of the patented invention. In the case of moral damage, there will be compensation, not yet proven the existence of economic damage.

(b) A lump sum which at least includes the amount which the infringer would have had to pay to the holder of the patent for the grant of a licence which would have allowed him to carry out his exploitation under the law. In order to be fixed, account will be taken of the economic importance of the patented invention, the time of validity of the patent at the time the infringement began, and the number and class of licenses. granted at that time.

3. Where the court considers that the holder does not comply with the obligation to exploit the patent laid down in Article 90, the profit left to be obtained shall be fixed in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (b) of the preceding paragraph.

4. Where the cessation of acts in breach of a patent is condemned, the Court shall establish a coercive compensation in favour of the claimant appropriate to the circumstances on the day after the effective cessation of the infringement. The final amount of this allowance, which shall be cumulated with the general application of paragraph 2, as well as the day from which the obligation to compensate shall arise, shall be fixed at the execution of the judgment, in accordance with the provisions of Law 1/2000 of 7 January of Civil Procedure.

5. Proceedings relating to the calculation or quantification and settlement of damages in accordance with the criteria laid down in this Article shall be carried out on the basis of the bases laid down in the judgment in accordance with the procedure laid down in Chapter IV. of Title V of Book III of the Law on Civil Procedure.

Article 75. Impact of trade benefits.

1. In order to determine the profit to be obtained in accordance with the criteria laid down in Article 74.2, it may be included in the calculation of the profits, in the proportion which the court considers reasonable, to those produced by the holding of such profits. matters for which the invented object is an essential part of the commercial point of view.

2. It is understood that the invented object is an essential part of a business from the commercial point of view when the consideration of the incorporated invention constitutes a determining factor for the demand for said good.

Article 76. Compensation for disrepute.

The owner of the patent may also demand compensation for the damage caused by the disrepute of the patented invention caused by the infringer for any cause and, in particular, as a result of a performance defective or an inadequate presentation of that on the market.

Article 77. Deduction of allowances already received.

Of the compensation due to the person who has produced or imported without the consent of the patent holder the objects protected by the patent shall be deducted the indemnities which he has received for the same concept of who otherwise exploited the same object.

Article 78. Prescription and limit to the exercise of the actions.

1. The civil actions arising from the infringement of the patent right are prescribed at the age of five, from the moment they were able to exercise.

2. The owner of the patent may not exercise the actions established in this Title against those who exploit the objects that have been introduced into the trade by persons who have adequately compensated him for the damages caused.

TITLE VIII

Patent and patent application as property rights objects

CHAPTER I

Enrollment, co-ownership and expropriation

Article 79. Registration in the Patent Registry.

1. In the Register of Patents, both patent applications and patents already granted shall be entered in the form of regulations.

2. Except in the case provided for in Article 13.1, the transmission, licences and any other legal acts or businesses, both voluntary and necessary, affecting patent applications or patents already granted, shall only take place. effects vis-à-vis third parties in good faith since they have been entered in the Register of Patents. The form and documentation necessary for such registrations shall be established.

3. Rights to patent applications or patents which are not duly registered in the Patent Register may not be invoked against third parties. Nor shall it be possible to mention in your products a patent application or a patent who does not have a sufficient right to make that mention. Acts carried out in breach of the provisions of this paragraph shall be punishable as acts of unfair competition.

4. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall describe the legality, validity and effectiveness of the acts to be registered in the Patent Registry. The Patent Registry shall be public.

5. Registered in the Register of Patents any of the rights or encumbrances referred to in Article 81.1, no other of the same or earlier date may be registered which is opposite or incompatible with that. If only the application for registration has been entered, no other right or incompatible charge may be entered until the application is settled.

Article 80. Co-ownership.

1. Where the patent application or the patent already granted belong to several persons, the resulting community shall be governed by the agreement between the parties, failing that in accordance with the provisions of this Article and ultimately by the rules of the common law on the community of goods.

2. However, each of the unit-holders can only:

(a) Dispose of the party that corresponds to it by notifying the other community members that they will be able to exercise the rights of tanteo and retraction. The period for the exercise of the right of entry shall be two months, from the date of dispatch of the notification, and that of the retract, of one month from the registration of the transfer in the Register of Patents.

b) Explain the invention upon notification to the other co-holders.

c) Perform the necessary acts for the preservation of the application or the patent.

(d) To exercise civil or criminal actions against third parties who are in any way concerned with the rights deriving from the application or the common patent. The participant who exercises such actions is obliged to notify the other members of the action taken, in order to enable them to join the action.

3. The granting of a licence to a third party to exploit the invention must be jointly granted by all the members, unless the court for reasons of fairness, in the circumstances of the case, gives any of them to grant the aforementioned concession

Article 81. Expropriation.

1. Any patent or patent application already granted may be expropriated for public utility or social interest, by means of fair compensation.

2. Expropriation may be made in order for the invention to fall into the public domain and may be freely exploited by anyone, without the need to apply for licenses, or for the purpose of being exclusively exploited by the State, which acquire, in this case, the ownership of the patent.

3. The public utility or the social interest will be declared by the Law that orders the expropriation, which will have if the invention is to fall in the public domain or if the State is to acquire the ownership of the patent or the application. The file to be instructed shall be adjusted in any case, including the fixing of the price, to the general procedure laid down in the Law of 16 December 1954 on Compulsory Expropriation.

CHAPTER II

Transfers, Licensing, and Gravitation

Article 82. General principles.

1. Both the patent application and the patent are transmittable and may be given as collateral or be the subject of other actual rights, licenses, purchase options, liens, other legal businesses or measures resulting from the execution procedure. In the event that a mortgage is established, it shall be governed by its specific provisions and shall be entered in Section 4 of the Register of Furniture with notification of such registration to the Patent Register for its purposes. registration in the same. For these purposes both registers shall be coordinated to communicate the charges entered or recorded in them.

2. The acts referred to in the preceding paragraph, when carried out between live, shall be recorded in writing to be valid.

3. For the purposes of their assignment or lien the patent application or the patent already granted are indivisible, although they may belong in common to several persons.

4. The provisions of this Chapter are without prejudice to the rules relating to the content and limits of contracts for the disposal and licensing of intangible goods imposed by other applicable national laws or the application, by the relevant national or Community bodies, of the provisions laid down in the Community regulations relating to the application of Article 101 (3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to certain categories of technology transfer agreements.

Article 83. Contractual licenses.

1. Both the patent application and the patent may be licensed in full or in any of the powers that make up the exclusive right, for the entire national territory or for a part of it. Licenses can be unique or non-exclusive.

2. The rights conferred by the patent or the application may be exercised in respect of a licensee who violates any of the limits of his license established under the provisions of the previous paragraph.

3. Holders of contractual licences may not give them to third parties or sublicences unless otherwise agreed.

4. Unless otherwise agreed, the holder of a contractual licence shall have the right to carry out all the acts which make up the exploitation of the patented invention, in all its applications, throughout the national territory and for the duration of the patent.

5. It shall be presumed that the licence is not exclusive and that the licensor may grant other licences and exploit the invention in itself.

6. The exclusive licence prevents the granting of other licences and the licensor may only exploit the invention if that right has been expressly reserved in the contract.

Article 84. Technical knowledge.

1. Unless otherwise agreed, the person who transmits a patent application or a patent or grants a license to the patent is obliged to make available to the acquirer or the licensee the technical knowledge he possesses and which is necessary to be able to proceed to a proper exploitation of the invention.

2. The acquirer or licensee to whom the secret knowledge is communicated shall be obliged to take the necessary measures to avoid disclosure.

Article 85. Responsibility of the transferor and licensor.

1. The person who transmits a patent application or a patent already granted or grants a license on the same shall be liable, unless otherwise agreed, if he subsequently declared that he lacked the necessary ownership or powers. for the conduct of the business in question. Where the application is withdrawn or refused, the patent shall be revoked or its nullity shall be declared null and void shall apply in any event to the provisions of Article 104.3, unless there has been a greater responsibility for the transfer or the licensor.

2. The transferor or licensor shall always be liable if he has acted in bad faith. Bad faith is presumed, unless proof to the contrary, when it has not made known to the other contractor, making it on the contract with individualized mention of such documents, the reports or resolutions, Spanish or foreign, that has or is established to have its existence, concerning the patentability of the invention which is the subject of the application or the patent.

3. The actions referred to in the preceding paragraphs shall be limited to six months from the date of the final decision or the final judgment in which they are based. The rules of the Civil Code on Sanitation by Eviction shall apply to them.

Article 86. Liability to third parties.

1. Those who transmit a patent application or a patent already granted or grant a license to it shall be jointly and severally liable to the acquirer or the licensee of the compensation to which it has taken place as a result of the damages and damages caused to third persons by defects inherent in the invention subject to the application or the patent.

2. The party making the payment of the compensation referred to in the preceding paragraph may repeat the amounts paid, unless otherwise agreed, which has been carried out in bad faith or which, in the light of the circumstances of the case and for reasons of fairness, it must be the one who supports in whole or in part the compensation established in favor of the third parties.

CHAPTER III

Full-right licenses

Article 87. Full licenses.

It is full licenses that result from a public offering of non-exclusive contractual licenses, made by the patent holder, as provided for in this Chapter.

Article 88. Offering full licenses.

1. If the owner of the patent makes an offer of full licenses, declaring in writing to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office that he is willing to authorize the use of the invention to any interested, in quality of a licensee, the amount of the annual fees payable by the patent shall be reduced by half after the receipt of the declaration. Where a total change in the ownership of the patent occurs as a result of the exercise of the judicial action provided for in Article 12, the offer shall be deemed to have been withdrawn by the registration of the new holder in the Register of Patents. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will register with the Patent Registry and give proper publicity to the full license offers.

2. The offer may be withdrawn at any time by means of a written notification addressed to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office provided that no one has yet communicated to the patent holder his intention to use the invention. The withdrawal of the offer shall be effective from the moment of its notification.

3. The amount of the reduction in fees which has taken place since the offer was made available until the withdrawal of the offer shall be paid within the month following the withdrawal of the offer. In this case, the provisions of Article 184.3 shall apply, with the time limit of six months to be calculated from the end of the period referred to above.

4. The offering of full licenses may not be made when an exclusive license is entered in the Patent Register or when a request for the registration of a license of that class has been filed. Upon submission of the full license offering, no application for registration of an exclusive license may be permitted in the Patent Registry unless the offer is withdrawn or considered withdrawn.

5. The acceptance of a public offering of full-right licenses to any person to use the invention as a non-exclusive licensee.

Article 89. Obtaining full licenses.

1. Anyone wishing to use the invention on the basis of the full license offer shall notify the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office indicating the use to be made of the invention. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall forward the notification to both the patent holder and the applicant.

2. The applicant for the license shall be entitled to use the invention in the manner indicated by him within one month from the receipt of the notification sent to him by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

3. In the absence of a pact between the parties within the period indicated, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, at the written request of any of them and after hearing from both parties, shall fix the appropriate amount of the compensation to be paid by the licensee or the (a) amend if they have occurred or have been known to have made the amount established as manifestly inadequate. It may only be requested that the compensation laid down in this way be amended after one year after the last one has been fixed. In order for the request to fix or amend the compensation to be considered, the corresponding fee must have been paid.

4. At the end of each quarter of the calendar year, the licensee must inform the owner of the patent on the use made of the invention and must pay the corresponding compensation. If he does not fulfil the above obligations, the patent holder may give him an additional period of time which is reasonable for him to comply. After the unsuccessful period, the licence shall be cancelled, upon request justified by the patent holder.

TITLE IX

Obligation to exploit and mandatory licenses

CHAPTER I

Obligation to exploit the invention and requirements for the granting of compulsory licenses

Article 90. Obligation to operate.

1. The owner of the patent is obliged to exploit the patented invention either by himself or by person authorized by him by means of his execution in Spain or in the territory of a Member State of the World Trade Organization, so that Exploitation is sufficient to meet the demand in the Spanish market.

2. The holding must be carried out within four years from the date of filing of the patent application, or three years from the date on which it is published in the Official Journal of the Industrial Property, automatically the deadline that expires later.

3. Proof that the invention is being exploited in accordance with paragraph 1 is the responsibility of the patent holder.

Article 91. Mandatory licensing assumptions.

The granting of compulsory licenses on a given patent will proceed when any of the following assumptions are present:

a) Lack or insufficiency of exploitation of the patented invention.

b) Dependence between patents, or between patents and plant variety rights.

(c) The need to put an end to practices that have been declared contrary to national or Community competition law by an administrative or judicial decision.

d) Existence of grounds of public interest for the concession.

(e) Manufacture of pharmaceutical products intended for export pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 816/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 May 2006 on the granting of compulsory licences for patents relating to the manufacture of pharmaceutical products intended for export to countries with public health problems.

Article 92. Compulsory licences due to lack or insufficient exploitation.

1. After the expiry of the period laid down in Article 90 to initiate the operation of the patented invention, any person may apply for a compulsory licence if, at the time of the application, and with the exception of legitimate excuses, initiated the exploitation of the patent or when such exploitation, after the expiry of that period, has been interrupted for more than one year.

2. Objective difficulties of a legal technical nature, outside the will and circumstances of the patent holder, which make it impossible to exploit the invention or to prevent such exploitation from being greater, shall be regarded as legitimate excuses. of what it is.

Article 93. Mandatory licenses per dependency.

1. Where it is not possible to exploit the invention protected by a patent without prejudice to the rights conferred by a patent or an earlier right of production, the holder of the subsequent patent may apply for a compulsory license, for the exploitation of the object of the patent or of the variety which is the subject of the right of previous plant, by payment of an appropriate fee.

2. Where it is not possible to exploit a plant variety right without prejudice to the rights conferred by an earlier patent, the breeder may apply for a compulsory licence, for the exploitation of the invention protected by the patent, by means of the payment of a suitable fee.

3. If a patent has the object of a procedure for obtaining a chemical or pharmaceutical substance protected by a patent in force, both the holder of the patent and the patent of the product shall be entitled to the patent. obtaining a compulsory license on the patent of the other holder.

4. Applicants for the licences referred to in the preceding paragraphs shall demonstrate:

(a) that the invention or the variety represents significant technical progress of considerable economic importance in relation to the invention claimed in the previous patent or the variety protected by the previous vegetable obtention.

(b) They have attempted, without achieving this within a reasonable period of time, to obtain from the holder of the patent or the right to obtain the previous plant, a contractual license in the terms provided for in Article 97.1.

5. Where a compulsory licence is granted for a dependency, the holder of the patent or the right to obtain the above plant may also request the granting, under reasonable conditions, of a licence to use the invention or the variety protected by the patent or by the right of subsequent vegetable production.

6. Compulsory licences for dependence shall be granted only with the content necessary to permit the exploitation of the invention protected by the patent, or of the variety protected by the right of plant variety concerned, and shall be No effect when declaring the nullity or the expiration of any of the titles between which the dependency is based.

7. The processing and resolution of applications for compulsory licenses for reliance on the non-exclusive use of a patented invention shall be governed by the provisions of this Law. The processing and resolution of applications for compulsory licences for use of the variety protected by a breeder's right shall be governed by their specific legislation.

Article 94. Compulsory licensing to remedy anticompetitive practices.

1. The final administrative or judicial decision which has declared the infringement of the right of competition by the owner of the patent shall be communicated to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office by the National Commission of the Markets and the Jurisdiction or by the Judge or Court that issued it.

2. When the decision directly declares the patent to be subject to the compulsory licensing regime, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will publish it in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property" and proceed according to the provisions of the Articles 98 and 99 of this Law.

3. In this case, the justification for the prior negotiation between the patent holder and the potential user, applicant for the compulsory licence, shall not be required. The need to correct anti-competitive practices may be taken into account when determining the licence fee.

4. Without prejudice to the provisions of the preceding paragraphs, where the Government considers that there are grounds of public interest to put an end to anti-competitive practices, the subject of the patent to the compulsory licensing scheme may be agreed upon. by royal decree in accordance with the provisions of the following article.

Article 95. Compulsory licences for reasons of public interest.

1. On the basis of public interest, the Government may at any time submit a patent application or a patent already granted to the compulsory licensing regime, thereby providing it with royal decree.

2. In any event, there are grounds for public interest where:

(a) The initiation, increase or generalization of the exploitation of the invention, or the improvement of the conditions in which such exploitation takes place, are of primary importance for public health or for national defense.

(b) The lack of exploitation or insufficient quality or quantity of the exploitation carried out involves serious damage to the economic or technological development of the country.

c) The national supply needs so require.

3. The royal decree referred to in paragraph 1 shall be agreed upon at the request of the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism. In cases where the importance of the exploitation of the invention relates to public health or national defence, the proposal shall be made jointly with the Minister responsible for health or defence, respectively.

4. The royal decree which provides for the filing of the patent under the compulsory licensing regime may directly, in whole or in part, establish the scope, conditions and licence fee in the cases provided for in Article 97.2, or fixing of these conditions to the appropriate procedure before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office provided for in the following chapter for the purposes of the decision granting the licence.

5. Where the application of the compulsory licensing regime for reasons of public interest is due to its importance for national defence, the possibility of applying for such licences to one or more particular undertakings may be reserved.

Article 96. Compulsory licences for the manufacture of medicinal products for countries with public health problems.

1. Applications for compulsory licences submitted pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 816/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 May 2006 on the granting of compulsory licences for patents relating to the manufacture of pharmaceutical products intended for export to countries with public health problems, shall be directed to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, in the standard models to be established for this purpose. Licences shall be processed in accordance with the provisions of that Regulation (EC) No 816/2006 and shall be governed by the provisions of that Regulation.

2. The licence shall take effect from the date on which the decision granting the licence is notified to the applicant and the holder of the right, whichever is later. The resolution to be agreed by the licence shall establish the licence fee. The licence may be revoked by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office if the licensee does not comply with the conditions under which he was granted in accordance with Article 16 of that Regulation (EC) No 816/2006.

3. Without prejudice to any other legally intended consequence of any infringement of the prohibition provided for in Article 13 of Regulation (EC) No 816/2006 and Article 2 of Council Regulation (EC) No 953/2003 of 26 May 2003, intended to prevent trade diversion to the European Union of certain essential medicinal products, an infringement of the patent on which the licence is granted shall be considered.

CHAPTER II

Mandatory licensing procedure

Article 97. Prior justification of the applicant for the license.

1. Prior to the application for a compulsory licence, the person concerned must prove that he has tried, without achieving it within a reasonable period, to obtain a contractual licence from the patent holder in terms and reasonable commercial terms. For the licences provided for in Article 96, and unless the circumstances provided for in Article 9.2 of Regulation (EC) No 816/2006 referred to in paragraph 1 of the preceding Article are given, this period shall in any case be 30 days, prior to the submission of the application.

2. The provisions of the preceding paragraph shall not apply:

a) In cases of national emergency or in other circumstances of extreme urgency.

b) In cases of non-commercial public use.

(c) In the case referred to in Article 91 (c).

Article 98. License request.

1. The application for a compulsory licence, addressed to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office in the standard model to be established for this purpose, must be accompanied by proof of the prior contractual licence, except in the case of cases where the referred to in paragraph 2 of the previous Article. The application shall be subject to payment of the corresponding fee.

2. The applicant, in addition to his request, must state the circumstances justifying it, provide proof that he is in support of his claims, and prove that he has sufficient means and guarantees to carry out a actual and effective exploitation of the patented invention according to the purpose of the license.

Article 99. Processing and resolution.

1. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall transfer a copy of the application with the accompanying documents to the patent holder, in order to reply within a maximum period of one month. The defence must be accompanied by evidence to justify the allegations made. If the holder of the patent does not reply within the time limit, the said Office shall grant the licence.

2. Where, in the light of the arguments and evidence presented, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office considers that the circumstances justifying the granting of the licence are given, it shall invite the parties to appoint a common mediator or, failing that, each expert who, together with a third expert appointed by the Office, agrees the conditions of that expert.

3. In the absence of agreement on the designation of mediator or expert, or on the terms of the license within two additional months, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will decide on the granting of the license and will resolve in consequence.

4. The resolution granting the license shall determine the content of the license. In particular, the scope of the licence, the licence fee, the duration, the guarantees to be provided by the licensee, and any other clauses which ensure compliance with the conditions justifying the granting of the licence, shall be fixed. license.

5. During the processing of the file, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will be able to carry out the actions that are relevant and can be of use to resolve the issue of the license. The Office may suspend the processing on a justified request from both parties in the circumstances provided for in the Implementing Regulation of this Law.

6. The resolution shall determine the costs to be borne by each party, which shall be incurred at the request of the party. Common expenses will be paid by half. The payment of all charges may be imposed on one of the parties when it is declared that it has acted with fear or bad faith.

7. The interposition of an administrative or judicial remedy against the decision terminating the file shall not suspend the execution of the contested act, but the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office may authorise the previous licensee (i) the application of the licence shall be delayed until the date of the commencement of the holding until the licence is granted.

CHAPTER III

Mandatory License Regime

Article 100. Characteristics of the mandatory licenses.

1. Mandatory licenses will not be unique.

2. The licence shall be paid in accordance with the circumstances of each case, taking into account the economic importance of the invention.

3. If the patent falls on semiconductor technology, compulsory licences may only be for non-commercial public use or be used to rectify a practice declared anti-competitive after a court procedure or administrative.

4. The relations maintained by the patent holder and the licensee in connection with the granting of a compulsory licence shall be in accordance with good faith. For the holder of the patent, the application of this principle shall include the obligation to make available to the licensee the technical knowledge he possesses and are necessary in order to be able to carry out appropriate commercial exploitation of the invention.

In case of violation of this principle, declared by judicial judgment, by the owner of the patent, the licensee may ask the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office to reduce the licence fee, in proportion to the importance of the unfulfilled obligation for the exploitation of the invention. If, under the same conditions, the performance of the licensee is declared to be contrary to the good contractual faith, the licensor may call upon the said Office to extinguish the compulsory licence.

5. The compulsory licence shall include the supplementary protection certificates which, when the licence is granted or subsequently, fall on the object of the basic patent included in the field of compulsory licence.

6. As soon as they do not object to the provisions of this Title or the Community legislation, the rules laid down for the contractual licences provided for in Title VIII, Chapter II of this Law shall apply to compulsory licences.

Article 101. Assignment, modification and cancellation of compulsory licenses.

1. In order for the transfer of a compulsory license to be valid, the license must be transmitted together with the company or part of the company that operates it and that the transfer is expressly noted by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office. In the case of licences for patent dependence, it will also be necessary for the licence to be transmitted together with the dependent patent.

2. It shall be null and void, in any case, to grant sublicences by the holder of a compulsory licence.

3. Both the licensee and the patent holder may apply to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office for the modification of the licence fee or other conditions of the compulsory licence where there are new facts to justify the change and, in (a) where the holder of the patent grants, after the compulsory licence, contractual licences under conditions which are unreasonably more favourable to those of the patent.

4. If the licensee fails to comply with serious or repeated obligations under the compulsory licence, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, after hearing the party concerned, on its own initiative or at the request of a party interested, you can cancel the license.

TITLE X

Nullity, revocation, and expiration of the patent

CHAPTER I

Nullity

Article 102. Causes of nullity.

1. The nullity of the patent shall be declared:

(a) Where it is justified that there is no evidence, in respect of the subject matter of the patent, of the patentability requirements contained in Title II of this Law.

b) When you do not describe the invention in a sufficiently clear and complete manner so that you can run it an expert on the subject.

(c) Where the object exceeds the content of the patent application as presented, or in the event that the patent has been granted as a result of a divisional application or as a result of an application submitted on the basis of the provisions of Article 11, where the object of the patent exceeds the content of the initial application as presented.

(d) When the protection conferred by the patent has been extended after the grant.

e) Where the patent holder has no right to obtain it in accordance with the provisions of Article 10.

2. If the grounds for invalidity concern only one part of the patent, the patent shall be limited by the modification of the claims concerned and shall be declared partially void. For these purposes, in the statement of defence to the arguments of nullity, the proprietor of the patent, without prejudice to the main validity of the claims granted, may defend the game in the alternative or the sets of claims he proposes in the response.

Article 103. Exercise of the action for nullity.

1. The action to challenge the validity of the patent will be published. However, in the case provided for in paragraph 1 (e) of the preceding article, only the person entitled to obtain the patent may apply for the declaration of invalidity.

2. The action for annulment may be exercised throughout the legal life of the patent and for the five years following the expiry of the patent.

3. The action shall always be directed against whoever is the registrant of the patent at the time of the application, and the patent shall be notified to all persons entitled to the patent rights duly registered in the Register. of Patents so that they can be personified and intervene in the process.

4. In the case of nullity, the holder of the patent may limit the scope of the patent by modifying the claims. The patent, thus limited, will serve as a basis for the procedure.

5. The nullity of a patent may not be brought before the Civil Jurisdiction, invoking the same cause of nullity which would have already been the subject of a statement, as to the substance of the case, in a judgment given in the administrative-administrative procedure, on the same facts invoked as a cause of nullity.

Article 104. Effects of the declaration of invalidity.

1. The declaration of invalidity implies that the patent was never valid, considering that neither the patent nor the application that originated it has ever had the effects provided for in Title VI of this Law, in so far as it has been declared the nullity.

2. The nullity of the patent shall determine that of its complementary certificates in so far as it affects the right to the product protected by the basic patent which is based on the granting of such certificates.

3. Without prejudice to the compensation for damages to which the proprietor of the patent has acted in bad faith, the retroactive effect of the invalidity shall not affect:

(a) To the resolutions on infringement of the patent that would have acquired the force of res judicata and have been executed prior to the declaration of nullity.

(b) To contracts concluded before the declaration of invalidity, to the extent that they had been executed prior to the declaration of invalidity. However, for reasons of fairness and to the extent justified by the circumstances, it will be possible to claim the refund of sums paid under the contract.

4. Once signed, the declaration of nullity of the patent will have force of res judicata in front of all.

5. The judgment declaring the nullity, in whole or in part, of the patent shall in any event be communicated to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office for the cancellation of its registration or the modification of the registered title.

CHAPTER II

Revocation or limitation at the instance of the patent holder

Article 105. Request for revocation or limitation.

1. At the request of the holder, the patent, the grant of which may be signed, may be revoked or limited by modifying the claims at any time in their legal life, including the period of validity of the supplementary certificates in their case.

2. The application for revocation or limitation addressed to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall be made on the official form established for that purpose and shall be deemed to be valid only after the payment of the corresponding fee.

3. The revocation or limitation of a patent on which there are real rights, options for purchase, liens or licenses entered in the Patent Registry without the consent of the holders of those rights is not permitted. The application for revocation or limitation shall not be admissible if the filing of a court case is registered in the Patent Registry, claiming the ownership of the patent or the recognition of other property rights on the patent. As long as the plaintiff's consent is not recorded.

4. Where a judicial proceeding concerning the validity of the patent is pending and without prejudice to Article 120, the request for limitation, addressed to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, shall be authorized by the Judge or Court hearing the procedure.

Article 106. Procedure.

1. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall check the regularity of the documents submitted and examine whether, where appropriate, the amended claims are in accordance with Articles 28 and 48.

2. If the documentation presents defects or if the new set of claims does not limit the object of the patent, the objections shall be communicated to the person concerned, indicating the reasons, for the latter to correct the defects or to submit his arguments within the time limit. Regulation (EU) The application shall be refused if the defects are not remedied in time. No objections, or overlapping, will be resolved by agreeing to the requested revocation or limitation.

Article 107. Effects of revocation or limitation.

1. The effects of the revocation or limitation are the same as those of total or partial nullity. The amended claims shall retroactively determine the extent of the protection conferred by the patent.

2. The effects of the revocation or limitation on previous decisions and the contracts concluded before the decision declaring it shall be as provided for in Article 104.

CHAPTER III

Expiration

Article 108. Causes of expiration.

1. Patents expire:

(a) For the expiration of the period for which they have been granted.

b) By resignation of the holder.

(c) For non-payment in due time of an annuity and, if applicable, of the corresponding surcharge.

d) If the invention is not exploited within two years of the grant of the first compulsory license.

(e) For failure to comply with the obligation to operate under Article 90, where the owner of the patent is unable to benefit from the provisions of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, of 20 March 1883 or the Agreement on the Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Related to Trade, made in Marrakesh on 15 April 1994 and normally resides or has its industrial or commercial establishment in a country whose legislation supports the adoption of a similar measure.

2. Without prejudice to its declaration by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office and its publication in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property", the expiration of a patent incorporates the patented object into the public domain from the moment it is produced the facts or omissions which gave rise to it, except in the part in which the same object was covered by a previous and valid patent. It shall apply to the expiry of the basic patent for any of the reasons set out in paragraphs 1.b) to 1.e), and from the moment that the latter occurs, the provisions of Article 104.2 in respect of nullity.

3. In the case of non-payment of an annuity, it is understood that the omission that gives rise to the expiration occurs at the beginning of the year of the life of the patent for which the annuity has not been paid. By way of derogation from the preceding paragraph, the expiry shall not take place in this case before the end of the six-month period of delay without the annuity and the corresponding surcharge, or, where appropriate, the corresponding rate of regularisation.

4. In the case of paragraph 1 (d), the expiry shall be declared after instruction by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office of the relevant administrative file.

Article 109. Expiration due to lack of timely payment of an annuity.

1. Where there are registered liens on a patent or an ongoing claim for action and the holder has not paid in due time an annuity, the patent shall not lapse until the lifting of the embargo or the definitive dismissal of the Claim action. However, the owner of the foreclosed patent may, however, avoid forfeiture by paying the accrued annuities within two months from the date on which the lien is communicated to him.

2. If, as a result of the procedures referred to in the preceding paragraph, a change in the ownership of the patent is made, the new holder may pay the annuities due within two months from the date on which the Judgment on the claim for action would have gained firmness or since the competent authority or court had notified the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office of the final award of the patent on board.

3. After the time limits laid down in paragraphs 1 and 2, the patent shall lapse if the payment has not been made.

4. A patent for non-payment of an annuity in due time will not expire when a mortgage on the patent is registered in the Patent Registry. The mortgage holder may make the payment on behalf of its owner within one month of the end of the period of surcharges provided for in Article 185. They may also make the payment under the same conditions the holders of other rights entered in the patent which may be affected by their expiry, without prejudice to their right to repeat in front of the holder of the patent the quantities paid.

When the mortgage has been constituted in favor of the Public Finance the payment will be suspended until the cancellation of the same, without the expiration of the patent for lack of payment of the outstanding annuities, that they must be paid either by the owner of the patent which mortgaged the patent or by the new owner after the foreclosure of the mortgage guarantee by the administrative award procedure.

Article 110. Waiver.

1. The holder may waive the entire patent or one or more claims of the patent.

2. The waiver, addressed to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, must be filed in writing and will only have effects against third parties once entered in the Patent Registry.

3. Where the waiver is partial, the patent shall remain in force with reference to the claims not included in the waiver, provided that the waiver does not entail the extension of the object of the patent.

4. The waiver of a patent on which there are real rights, options for purchase, liens or licenses entered in the Patent Registry without the consent of the holders of those rights is not permitted. The waiver shall also not be admissible if there is an action in the form of a claim or a declaration of invalidity on the patent and shall not include the consent of the claimant.

5. The waiver of the patent will be published in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property". Where the waiver is partial, a new patent prospectus shall be published, subject to payment of the relevant fee, in accordance with the provisions of this Regulation.

TITLE XI

Patents of Interest for National Defense

Article 111. Subject to the secrecy regime.

1. The content of all patent applications shall be kept secret until one month after the date of their submission. Before the end of the period, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall extend this period up to four months when it considers that the invention may be of interest to the national defence, notifying the extension to the applicant and immediately putting the Provision of the Ministry of Defense copies of the application for the patent filed.

2. For the aforementioned purposes, the necessary coordination between the Ministry of Defense and the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will be established to determine when an invention may be of interest to the national defense. The Ministry of Defence shall be able to know under secret rules all applications submitted.

3. Where the national defence interest so requires, the Ministry of Defence shall require the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office to ensure that, before the end of the period laid down in paragraph 1, the secret processing is completed and the corresponding notification to the applicant.

4. As long as the patent application or the patent is subject to the secrecy regime, the applicant or the holder shall refrain from any action which may permit the knowledge of the invention by unauthorised persons. The Ministry of Defence may, at the request of the holder, authorise acts on the full or partial exploitation of the subject matter of the application or the patent, indicating the conditions to which such acts are subject.

5. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will be able to lift the secret tax on an application or on a particular patent.

6. Those patent applications or patents which have been declared secret in a country belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty and which claim the right of priority are filed in Spain, will be kept secret as long as they do not has raised that regime in the country that declared it. Such requests may not be withdrawn without the express permission of the authority which declared the secret.

Article 112. Processing.

1. Patent applications subject to secrecy will follow a similar procedure to those not secret except as regards the disclosure and publication reporting the formalities in any case to the Ministry of Defense and the holder of the application or your representative.

2. As long as the system of secrecy is maintained, the time limits for the applicant from the publication of the report on the state of the art will start to run since the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office informs the applicant of the the possibility of making the actions subject to these deadlines.

3. The time limit for formulating opposition to the grant of the patent shall not be opened until the date of the establishment of the secrecy regime is published in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property".

Article 113. Maintenance of the secrecy regime.

The patent, the grant of which has been processed in secret, shall be entered in a Secret Register of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, and shall be maintained in that same regime for one year from the date of its granting. The extension of that period shall be renewed annually, making the relevant notification to the patent holder.

Article 114. Annuities and compensation.

1. Secret patents shall not be subject to the payment of annuities.

2. The owner of the patent may claim compensation from the State for the time in which it was kept secret. This compensation, which may be claimed for each year, shall be agreed between the parties. If an agreement is not reached, the compensation shall be determined judicially, taking into account the importance of the invention and the benefit that the holder could have obtained from the free exploitation of the same.

3. If the invention covered by the secret patent has been disclosed due to the fault or negligence of the owner thereof, the latter shall lose the right to compensation, without prejudice to the criminal liability to which it has taken place.

Article 115. Applications abroad.

1. For the purposes of the foregoing articles, in the case of inventions made in Spain and not claimed the priority of a previous deposit in Spain may not be applied for in any foreign country before the end of the period the time limits laid down in Article 1111.1, unless it has been done with the express consent of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office. Such authorisation may not be granted for inventions which are of interest to the national defence unless expressly authorised by the Ministry of Defence.

2. The request for authorisation must be formalised, in accordance with the provisions of the Rules of Procedure, by presenting the application with the documents necessary for the Office to carry out the examination provided for in the Spanish Patent Office. Article 111.1 under conditions of secrecy. The Office may require the submission of a translation if necessary.

In the event that the invention is not of interest to the national defense, and its presentation outside Spain does not contravene the provisions of international agreements on defense signed by Spain, the Spanish Office of Patents and Marks will be communicated to the applicant within a maximum period of one month, authorizing him to submit it as first application abroad. The authorisation shall be granted if the Office has not acted in this respect on the expiry of that period.

3. Where the applicant has his registered office, registered office or habitual residence in Spain, it shall be presumed, unless proof to the contrary, that the invention was made on Spanish territory.

TITLE XII

Jurisdiction and procedural rules

CHAPTER I

General provisions

Article 116. Jurisdiction.

The knowledge of all disputes arising as a result of the exercise of actions of any kind and nature which are, arising from the application of the provisions of this Law, shall be based on their Jurisdiction, the civil, criminal or judicial-administrative jurisdiction.

Article 117. Legitimization for the exercise of the actions.

1. They shall be entitled to the exercise of the actions referred to in Article 2.3 of this Law, in addition to the holders of the rights entered in the Register of Patents, who prove that they have duly requested the registration of the registration of the act or business of which it brings causes the right to be asserted, provided that such registration becomes granted.

2. Unless otherwise agreed, the holder of an exclusive license may exercise in his own name all the actions that are recognized in this Law to the owner of the patent against third parties who infringe his or her right, but cannot exercise them. the licensee of a non-exclusive license.

3. The licensee, who, in accordance with the provisions of the previous paragraph, is not entitled to exercise the actions for infringement of the patent, may require the holder of the patent to enable the corresponding judicial action. If the holder refuses or does not exercise the appropriate action within a period of three months, the licensee may enter into his/her own name, accompanying the request made. Prior to the time limit referred to above, the licensee may ask the Judge to take urgent precautionary measures where he justifies the need for such measures to avoid significant damage, with the presentation of the requirement.

4. The licensee exercising an action under the provisions of any of the foregoing paragraphs shall notify the holder of the patent, which may be personable and intervene in the proceedings, either as a party to the or as an intervener.

Article 118. Competence.

1. Civil disputes that may arise under this Law shall be resolved in the judgment corresponding to the Law 1/2000 of 7 January of Civil Procedure.

2. The Judge of the Commercial City of the City of the High Court of Justice of the Autonomous Communities in which the General Council of the Judiciary has agreed to exclusively attribute the knowledge of the patent matters.

3. In particular it shall be territorially competent the Judge of the specialized Mercantile referred to in the previous paragraph corresponding to the domicile of the defendant or, failing that, the place of residence of the authorized representative in Spain for acting on behalf of the holder, if in the Autonomous Community of his domicile there were Courts of the Mercantil specialised in patent matters in accordance with paragraph 2.

In the absence of the actor's choice, any Judge of the Commercial to whom the knowledge of patent matters in accordance with paragraph 2 shall be competent shall be competent.

4. In the event of infringement of the patent right, it shall also be competent, at the request of the claimant, to the same court as the previous paragraph of the Autonomous Community where the infringement had been carried out or to have occurred. their effects, provided that in that Autonomous Community they have been tried on the basis of patent matters in accordance with paragraph 2.

In the absence of such a choice, any Judge of the Commercial to whom the knowledge of patent matters in accordance with paragraph 2 shall be competent shall be competent.

Article 119. Time limits for patent litigation.

1. The defendant for any civil action governed by this Law shall have a period of two months to respond to the claim and, where appropriate, to make counter-claim.

The same period shall govern to answer the counterclaim, as well as to answer to the limitation of the patent applied for by the holder of the patent as a result of the challenge of the validity of the title carried out by means of counterclaim or Exception by the defendant.

2. The forecast contained in Article 337 of the Civil Procedure Act shall not operate, unless the defendant justifies the failure to provide the information or reports that it intends to avail itself of the answer to the claim or, where appropriate, to the counterclaim.

Article 120. Nullity of the actor's patent.

1. The person in respect of whom an action is exercised for infringement of the rights deriving from a patent may, in all manner of proceedings, by way of counterclaim or by way of exception, claim the total or partial nullity of the patent of the actor, compliance with the rules of common procedural law. For such purposes, the provisions of Article 103 shall be taken into account.

2. If the nullity is raised by exception, the patent holder shall have 8 days, from the receipt of the defence to the application, to request from the Judge or Tribunal that the exception be treated as counterclaim.

3. In the event that the owner of the patent, with principal or subsidiary character, chooses to limit the patent by modifying his claims, he must provide the new game or sets of claims and his justification in the process of response. to the application for a declaration of invalidity, a reply to the counterclaim or a reply to the declaration of invalidity. The holder of the patent which has exercised an action for infringement of the same shall, in the same process of defence to the challenge of his patent, reason, and in his case prove, in how they affect the proposed limitations to the action of infringement exercised against the defendant.

4. Without prejudice to the provisions of the previous paragraph, where the patent is modified outside the process by oversold circumstances, the holder of the patent may request that the patent thus amended serve as a basis for the process. In such cases, the Judge or Court must grant the other parties to the proceedings.

5. The Judge or the Court shall transfer the application for limitation to the instant of nullity in turn, so that it maintains or modifies its claims in the light of the proposed limitation. The calculation of the two-month period provided for in Article 119.1 shall be initiated from the date of receipt of the application for the limitation of the patent filed by the actor.

6. The application for a limitation of a principal or subsidiary character shall be filed, the Judge or the Court shall have the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office on its own initiative for registration as a preventive annotation. The final decision on the limitation of the patent shall be notified of its own motion to the Office for registration and, where appropriate, modification of the patent.

7. In the processes in which actions are exercised for which the validity of a patent is questioned, the Judge or Court may agree, in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Civil Procedure and after payment of the corresponding fee when requested to Part-time, the issue of an expert report by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office to give written opinion on those specific extremes in which the expert reports provided by the parties are contradictory. The author of the report may be called upon to declare on the contents of the report when required by the Judge or Court hearing the case. In no event shall this provision be understood to limit the discretion of the Judge or Court to obtain this opinion from the institution or institution which it considers to be more appropriate in the circumstances of the case.

Article 121. Negative action.

1. Any person concerned may bring an action against the proprietor of a patent, in order for the competent court to declare that a given action does not constitute an infringement of that patent.

2. The person concerned, prior to the lodging of the application, shall require the holder of the patent to give a ruling on the oponability between the applicant and the industrial holding which the applicant carries out on the territory of the applicant. Spain or in the face of serious and effective preparations for such effects. After one month from the date of the request without the patent holder having spoken or where the applicant is not in agreement with the reply, he may exercise the action provided for in the preceding paragraph.

3. The action referred to in paragraph 1 may not be brought to an action who has been sued for the infringement of the patent in question.

4. If the applicant proves that the action referred to in his application does not constitute an infringement of the patent, the Judge shall make the required statement.

5. The application must be notified to all persons who hold the patent rights duly registered in the Patent Registry, so that they can be personified and intervene in the process. However, contractual licensees may not be able to take part in cars when their licence agreement so provides.

6. The action referred to in this Article may be exercised in conjunction with the action for the declaration of the nullity of the patent.

Article 122. Treatment of confidential information.

When for the clarification of the facts which are the subject of the judicial proceedings referred to in this chapter, either through the practice of preliminary proceedings or of measures for the assurance of the test, necessary to obtain information which the Judge or Court considers to be of a confidential nature, the court or tribunal shall take the decision to obtain or require the same and shall, at the request of the parties, have the necessary measures and actions to ensure the confidentiality of the information required and the right to effective judicial protection of the procedural part of the information.

CHAPTER II

Fact Check Diligence

Article 123. Request for the proceedings.

1. The person entitled to exercise the actions arising from the patent may ask the Judge to act as a matter of urgency in order to ascertain the facts which may constitute a violation of the exclusive right granted by the patent, without prejudice to those that may be requested pursuant to Article 256.1 of Law 1/2000 of 7 January, of Civil Procedure.

2. Before resolving the request, the Judge may request the reports and order the investigations that he deems appropriate.

3. The practice of proceedings may be agreed only where, in the circumstances of the case, the infringement of the patent is presumed and it is not possible to verify the reality of the patent without recourse to the requested measures.

4. By agreeing, where appropriate, the practice of the requested proceedings, the Judge, in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Civil Procedure, shall determine the course to be provided by the petitioner in order to respond to the damages that may have been caused. may be caused.

5. If the Judge does not consider the claim sufficiently well founded, he shall refuse it by means of an order which shall be appable for both purposes.

Article 124. Practice of the proceedings.

1. Without any prior notification of his practice to whom he must bear it, in the course of verification the Judge, with the intervention of the expert or experts who for that purpose has appointed, and heard the manifestations of the person with whom the diligence is understood, will determine whether the alleged infringement of the patent can be carried out in the light of the examination. When the invention is not manufactured or executed in Spain, the examination and verification shall refer to the imported and/or marketed products subject to the diligence.

2. Where the Judge considers that, in the light of the examination carried out, it is not presumed that the infringement of the patent is being carried out, he shall terminate the proceedings, order that a separate part be formed in which the proceedings are to be included, shall be kept secret and shall have the right of the Registrar to notify the petitioner that it is not appropriate to give him the result of the proceedings.

3. In other cases, the Judge, with the assistance of the expert or experts appointed for this purpose, shall carry out a detailed description of the machinery, devices, products, procedures, installations or actions by which he is used. carry out the alleged infringement.

4. In any event, the Judge shall take care that the diligence of verification does not serve as a means to violate industrial secrets or to carry out acts that constitute unfair competition.

5. No appeal shall be made against the Judge's decision on the outcome of the due diligence.

Article 125. Certifications and copies of the proceedings.

1. Other certifications or copies which are intended for the party concerned and the precise for the applicant to initiate the corresponding judicial action may not be issued from the verification procedures carried out. The applicant may only use this documentation to propose such action, with a prohibition to disclose it or to communicate it to third parties.

2. If within 30 working days from the date of delivery to the applicant of the certification of the proceedings the corresponding claim has not been filed exercising the judicial action, they shall be without effect and shall not be used in any other court action.

Article 126. Compensation from the affected party.

The party affected by the verification measures may in any event claim, from whom the party has requested, the strengthening of the expenses and damages that have been caused to it, including the loss of profit. The payment must be made only if the main action is not exercised or is rejected, all without prejudice to the general liability for damages in which the applicant may have incurred the measures in the cases in which it is Place.

CHAPTER III

Precautionary measures

Article 127. Request for precautionary measures.

Who exercises or is to exercise an action of those provided for in this Law may request the judicial body to understand from it the adoption of precautionary measures to ensure the effectiveness of such measures. actions, in accordance with the provisions of the Act and in Law 1/2000 of 7 January of Civil Procedure.

Article 128. Possible precautionary measures.

1. Protective measures against the alleged infringer may be taken to ensure that the full effectiveness of the eventual failure of the offender is duly ensured, and in particular the following:

(a) The cessation of acts which may infringe the right of the petitioner or his prohibition, where there are rational indications to assume the imminence of such acts.

(b) The retention and deposit of the goods allegedly infringing the right of the patent holder and of the means exclusively intended for such production or the conduct of the patented procedure.

c) The entrenchment of the eventual compensation for damages.

d) The log records that come.

2. The precautionary measures provided for in paragraph 1 may also be requested, where appropriate, against intermediaries whose services a third party uses to infringe patent rights, even if the acts of such intermediaries do not they constitute an infringement in themselves, without prejudice to the provisions of Law 34/2002 of 11 July on the services of the information society and electronic commerce. Such measures shall be objective, proportionate and non-discriminatory.

3. Precautionary measures shall not be taken where the defendant is covered by a right founded on an earlier use in accordance with Article 63.

Article 129. Sureties.

1. When agreeing, where appropriate, on the precautionary measures requested, the Judge shall determine the course to be provided by the petitioner to respond to any damages that may arise. If the latter does not provide the security within the time limit to the effect indicated by the Judge, which shall in no case be less than 5 working days, the measures shall be deemed to be waived.

2. Where the measures requested involve restrictions on the industrial or commercial activity of the defendant, the Judge may, at the time of the proceedings, indicate the amount of the security by the provision of which the defendant may replace at any time the effectiveness of such agreed restrictive measures.

3. In any event, the securities which, on the basis of their principal or substitute character, are to be established for the defendant, shall be fixed in the same way for a period of time, when the same results are derived from acts of industrial or commercial exploitation which can have indefinite continuity.

4. The security may consist of a bank guarantee. Personal bonding shall not be permitted.

5. For the purposes of fixing the amount of the securities, the Judge shall hear both parties during the processing of the measures, without prejudice to the application of Article 733.2 of the Civil Procedure Act.

Article 130. Precautionary measures in case of appeal.

1. If the judgment of the first instance given in the civil proceedings has established a conviction for one of the parties and is the subject of an appeal, the appeal shall be given to the appealed party so that it can, within the of the 3-day period, requiring the Judge to take the appropriate precautionary measures or the provision of the appropriate replacement bail, in order to ensure the effectiveness of the failure, provided that such measures have not been taken previously adopted or insufficient.

2. The Judge of Instance shall hold the jurisdiction to deal with and resolve the relevant case concerning this incident of assurance, irrespective of the admission of the appeal and the elevation of the main cars to the Court to which it is appropriate to hear appeal resources.

Article 131. Lifting of precautionary measures.

1. In the case of a request for precautionary measures before the main action is exercised, they shall be without effect in their entirety if the application is not filed within the time limit laid down in Article 730.2 of Law No 1/2002 of 7 January 2002. Civil Prosecution.

2. The precautionary measures which have been agreed upon, shall always be without effect, if the judgment given in the first instance is not in favour of the assurance of the effectiveness of those measures. requested, or the judgment of the first instance revoked, in the event that the judgment was in favour of the requested documents. The provisions of Article 744 of the Law on Civil Procedure shall apply in any event.

3. The Judicial Secretary shall return the guarantees to the applicant for the precautionary measures after two months since his or her uprising, without prejudice to the period to which the injured party may be entitled to the precautionary measures to request the compensation for damages caused by them.

4. The compensation must be determined in accordance with Article 712 and in accordance with the Law on Civil Procedure, and if the security is not sufficient to deal with all the damage caused, the Prize against the person responsible.

Article 132. Preventive writings.

1. The person who provides for an application for precautionary measures without prior hearing, may appear in legal form to the court or body which he considers competent to hear such measures and justify their position by means of a preventive letter.

The judge or tribunal will agree to the formation of a precautionary measure procedure that will notify the patent holder and, if within three months the precautionary measures are presented, he will be able to give the procedure the the course provided for in Articles 733.1 and 734.3 of the Law on Civil Procedure, without this being an obstacle to the possibility of agreeing them without further processing by order in the terms and deadlines of Article 733.2 of the Law.

2. The holder who considers that the Judge or the Court before which the preventive letter was lodged is not the competent authority, may submit his application for precautionary measures to the person who is actually competent, and must make the application of the the existence of the preventive document and the court before which it has been lodged.

CHAPTER IV

Extra-judicial dispute settlement

Article 133. Reconciliation in the matter of employee inventions.

Before initiating judicial proceedings based on the application of the rules of Title IV of this Law concerning inventions made in the context of a relationship of employment or services, the litigious question may be submitted, if the parties so agree, to an act of conciliation with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

Article 134. Conciliation committee.

1. A commission headed by an expert from the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office appointed by its Director and two other elected representatives for each of the parties will be set up in accordance with the provisions of the conciliation procedure. the parties to the conflict, or when the inventor is a person at the service of any of the Public Administrations, and as regards the representative of the public authorities, in the form that is regulated within the framework of the labour law or statutory law applicable to the employment relationship.

2. In the case of inventions made by the staff referred to in Article 21 (1), the member of the commission representing the University or the research body or centre shall be appointed in the manner in which they are made available. (a) statutes or other internal rules of the University or regulatory regulations of the research body or centre. In the absence of such a designation, it shall be the responsibility of the Universities to the Governing Council and, in the case of the bodies or research centres, to its highest governing body.

Article 135. Proposal for agreement and agreement.

1. A proposal for an agreement shall be delivered by the committee within a maximum of two months after the request for conciliation, and the parties must state within a maximum of 15 days whether or not they are in conformity with that proposal. If it is not possible to constitute the conciliation committee for the failure of any of the parties to appear, or if any of them does not accept the proposal for agreement within the respective time limits, the procedure shall be terminated. Acceptance must be expressed. In the case of silence, there shall be no conformity.

2. If there is agreement, the Director of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall issue a certification of the agreement in accordance with the proposal accepted by the parties. For the purposes set out in Article 517 (2.9) of the Law on Civil Procedure, the certification of the Director of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, according to the proposal accepted by the parties, will be certified execution.

3. The execution of the agreement shall be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Civil Procedure for the execution of judicially approved judgments and conventions.

Article 136. Arbitration and mediation.

1. The interested parties may use the mediation or submit to arbitration the contentious questions arising between them on the occasion of the exercise of the rights recognized in this Law, in those matters not excluded from the free disposition of the parties in accordance with law.

2. They are not freely available, and are excluded from mediation or arbitration, questions relating to the procedures for granting, opposition or resources concerning the securities regulated in this Law, when the object of the dispute is the compliance with the requirements for their granting, maintenance or validity.

3. The final arbitration award shall have the effect of res judicata in accordance with the provisions of Article 43 of Law 60/2003 of 23 December of Arbitration, which shall apply in all the provisions of this Article, and the Spanish Office Patents and Marks will proceed to perform the necessary actions for their execution.

4. The mediation agreement signed by the mediator and the parties, once it has been raised to public or approved by the Judge, is constituted as an executive title in accordance with the provisions of Law 5/2012, of 6 July, of mediation in matters Civil and commercial matters shall be communicated to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office for the execution of the same.

5. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall be notified of the lodging of the appeals against the arbitral award or the exercise of a declaration of invalidity against the agreement of the mediation. Once firm the relevant resolutions will be communicated to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office for the purposes set out in the previous paragraph.

TITLE XIII

Utility models

CHAPTER I

Protection object and requirements

Article 137. Inventions that can be protected as utility models.

1. They may be protected as utility models, in accordance with the provisions of this Title, the industrially applicable inventions which, being new and involving inventive activity, consist in giving an object or product a configuration, structure or composition of which there is virtually appreciable advantage for its use or manufacture.

2. They may not be protected as utility models in addition to the materials and inventions excluded from patentability pursuant to Articles 4 and 5 of this Law, the invention of the process, the invention of the biological matter and the Pharmaceutical substances and compositions.

Article 138. Right to protection.

The right to the protection of utility models belongs to the inventor or his successor and is transmissible by all means that the law recognizes.

Article 139. State of the art.

1. The state of the art with reference to which the novelty must be judged and the inventive activity of the inventions protected as utility models, shall be the same as the one established in Article 6.2 for the patents of invention.

2. The content of the previous applications referred to in Article 6.3 shall also be understood in the state of the art.

Article 140. Inventive activity.

1. For its protection as a utility model, it is considered that an invention involves an inventive activity if it does not result from the state of the art in a very evident way for an expert in the matter.

2. If the state of the art comprises documents referred to in Article 139.2, they shall not be taken into account in deciding on the existence of the inventive activity.

CHAPTER II

Grant Request and Procedure

Article 141. Submission and content of the request.

1. In order to obtain a utility model, an application must be submitted to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office indicating that this is the modality requested, with the documentation referred to in Article 23.1. It shall not be necessary to include a summary of the invention. The application shall be subject to payment of the corresponding fee.

2. The date of submission of the application shall be that of the time when the competent body, as provided for in Article 22, receives the documentation containing at least the following elements:

a) The indication that a utility model is requested.

b) Information to identify the applicant or to contact him.

c) A description of the invention for which the utility model is requested, even if they do not comply with the formal requirements set out in the Act, or the referral to a previously filed application.

The referral to a previous application must indicate the number of this request, its filing date, and the office in which it was filed. The reference shall be made on the basis that the reference replaces the description or, where appropriate, the drawings.

A certified copy of the previous application, together with the corresponding translation in Spanish, must be submitted within the time limit provided for in the Implementing Regulation.

3. The date of submission of applications lodged at a post office shall be as provided for in Article 24 (4

.

Article 142. Assignment of the filing date and ex officio examination.

1. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will check whether the application meets the requirements for a filing date and whether the corresponding fee has been paid. The provisions of Article 33.2 shall apply for patents of invention.

2. If the fee has not been paid with the application, or has not been in full, this circumstance shall be notified to the applicant for the purpose of carrying out or completing the payment within the prescribed time limit. After that period without making or completing the payment, you will be given a withdrawal in the application.

3. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will verify that the application is processed:

a) If your object is susceptible to protection as a utility model.

(b) If that complies with the requirements set out in Title V, Chapter I as they have been developed regulatively.

The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will not examine the novelty, the inventive activity, the sufficiency of the description or the industrial application. Neither shall the report on the state of the art be made nor shall the written opinion be issued, provided for the patents of invention.

4. If the examination reveals defects in the documentation or the object of the application is not susceptible to protection as a utility model, these circumstances shall be communicated to the person concerned so that, within the prescribed time limit, the (i) to make To correct the defects pointed out, the applicant may modify the claims or split the application.

5. The application shall be refused by means of a reasoned decision where its object is not susceptible to protection as a utility model or where defects or irregularities persist which have not been remedied. The mention of the refusal shall be published in the 'Official Journal of Industrial Property'.

Article 143. Publication of the request.

There are no grounds for refusal, or under-healed, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will make available to the public the documents of the requested model making the corresponding announcement of the " Official Journal of the Industrial property ', in which the claims of the requested model and, where appropriate, a reproduction of the drawings shall also be published.

Article 144. Oppositions to the request.

1. Within two months of the publication of the application, any person may, on the grounds of the absence of any of the legal requirements required for his/her concession, including novelty, make up the inventive activity, or the adequacy of the description. The applicant's lack of legitimation may not be alleged, which must be brought before the ordinary courts.

2. The period laid down in the preceding paragraph may be extended by an additional two months to provide evidence or to supplement claims, provided that the opposition is validly lodged within the initial period and the extension is requested before the expiration of the same.

Article 145. Procedure and resolution.

1. The opposition shall be filed with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, in the form of a reasoned letter accompanied by the relevant evidence. The statement of opposition shall be accompanied by the supporting evidence for the payment of the opposition fee.

2. After the legal deadlines have not been filed, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will issue a resolution granting the requested utility model.

3. If oppositions are filed, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall inform the applicant that within the prescribed period it shall make written submissions and modify, if appropriate, the claims, giving transfer to the parts of the documents submitted by the other, under the conditions laid down in the Implementing Regulation of the Law.

4. After the deadlines for reply and reply, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall decide, in whole or in part, on the objections raised when the grounds of opposition provided for in Article 144 are met, or dismiss them in case contrary. However, where, in spite of the modifications or claims made, reasons which prevent in whole or in part the award of the model shall be granted to the applicant for a new period giving him at least one opportunity, in accordance with the provisions of the that Regulation, in order to remedy the defect or present new claims, before the opposition has been definitively resolved.

5. The concession of the utility model will be announced in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property", making available to the public the working documents in the file.

6. For utility models, the brochures referred to in Article 42 shall not be edited.

Article 146. Resources.

1. The administrative appeal against the granting of the utility model may only refer to those issues which may be resolved by the Administration during the registration procedure.

2. The administrative appeal, based on grounds for refusal of registration not examined by the Administration, may be brought only by those who have been party to an opposition proceedings against the granting of the registration based on such registration. (a) the decision of the Court of State for the purpose of the contested decision. For these purposes, the opposition may be deemed to be dismissed if, after the deadline for resolving and notifying it, no express resolution has been given.

3. In the light of the decision to grant a utility model, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office may not, on its own initiative or at the request of a party, exercise the power of review provided for in Article 102 of Law No 30/1992 of 26 November 1992. if the invalidity of the model is based on one of the causes provided for in Article 145 of this Law. Such grounds of invalidity may only be brought before the courts.

Article 147. Publication of the modifications.

The modifications of the utility model as a result of an opposition or a resource will be published making the corresponding announcement in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property". The publication shall include the claims of the registered model and, where appropriate, a reproduction of the drawings.

CHAPTER III

Grant Effects

Article 148. Content of the right and exercise of actions.

1. The protection of the utility model attributes to its holder the same rights as the patent of invention.

2. The duration of the protection of the utility models shall be ten years unextendable, from the date of submission of the application, and shall produce its effects from the publication of the mention of its concession in the Official Journal of the European Communities. Industrial Property ".

3. For the exercise of actions aimed at giving effect to the rights of exclusive rights derived from a utility model requested after the entry into force of this Law, it shall be necessary that it has been obtained or requested in advance, paying the corresponding fee, the report on the state of the art provided for in Article 36.1 for patents, referring to the title object in which the action is founded.

4. The report, once drawn up, shall be notified to the petitioner and made available to the public attached to the model file. In the event that the claim is filed before the filing of the report, the defendant may request the suspension of the time limit to answer it until such time as the report is supplied to the cars.

5. Once the report on the state of the art has been requested, and even if it has not yet been provided, the adoption of provisional and precautionary measures may be required, in accordance with the provisions of this Law and the Law on Civil Procedure, provided that they do not consist in the cessation or cessation of the defendant's industrial or commercial activity in relation to the protected object.

Article 149. Nullity.

1. The nullity of the protection of the utility model shall be declared:

(a) Where the object is not susceptible to protection in accordance with Articles 137 to 140 and Title II of this Law, as soon as it is not in contradiction with the provisions of the aforementioned Articles.

b) When you do not describe the invention in a sufficiently clear and complete manner so that you can run it an expert on the subject.

c) Where the object exceeds the content of the utility model application as presented or, if the utility model has been granted as a result of a divisional application or as a new application submitted on the basis of the provisions of Article 11, where the object of the utility model exceeds the content of the initial application as presented.

d) When the scope of the protection has been extended after the grant.

e) When the holder of the utility model was not entitled to obtain it in accordance with Articles 10 and 138.

2. If the causes of nullity only affect a part of the utility model, it will be limited by the modification of the affected claims and will be declared partially null.

Article 150. Application of the provisions on patents.

In the absence of a rule expressly applicable to utility models, the provisions laid down in this Law for patents of invention shall apply to such models, provided that they are not incompatible with the specialty of those patents. In any event, the rules contained in Title III on the right to patent and the designation of the inventor, Title IV on inventions of employees, Chapter V of Title V on general provisions of the procedure and the information from third parties and Title X on nullity, revocation and limitation at the instance of the holder and the expiry of the patent.

TITLE XIV

Applying international conventions

CHAPTER I

Presentation and effects of European patent applications and European patents in Spain

Article 151. Scope of application.

The provisions of this Law and its Implementing Regulation will apply to European patent applications and European patents that produce effects in Spain, in all that does not object to the Convention on the granting of European patents, made in Munich on 5 October 1973, hereinafter referred to as ' EPC

.

Article 152. Submission of European patent applications.

1. Applications for a European patent may be filed in the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office or in the Autonomous Communities competent to accept applications for national patents as provided for in Article 22. The Autonomous Communities shall forward such European patent applications to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

2. In the case of inventions made in Spain and the priority of a previous deposit in Spain is not claimed, the application shall necessarily be submitted in accordance with paragraph 1. If the applicant has his registered office, or registered office or habitual residence in Spain, he shall be presumed, unless proof to the contrary, that the invention was made on Spanish territory. The provisions of Article 34 and Title XI of this Law shall apply to these applications. In the absence of compliance with this obligation, the patent will not produce effects in Spain.

3. European patent applications in which the circumstances of the preceding paragraph are not met may be filed directly with the European Patent Office.

4. Applications submitted in Spain may be drawn up in any of the languages referred to in Article 14 (1) and (2) of the EPC. If they are in a language other than Spanish, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office may request a translation into Spanish, in accordance with what is available on a regulated basis.

Article 153. Value of the European patent application and the European patent.

Under the conditions laid down in the EPC, the European patent application to which a filing date has been granted and the European patent, respectively, have the value of a national deposit made on a regular basis to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office and that of a national patent.

Article 154. Rights conferred by the published European patent application.

1. Applications for a European patent, after publication as provided for in Article 93 of the EPC, shall enjoy in Spain provisional protection equivalent to that conferred on the publication of the national applications from the date on which the which, after payment of the corresponding fee, is made accessible to the public by the Spanish Patent Office and Marks a Spanish translation of the claims. A copy of the drawings, if any, must accompany the translation, even if it does not include expressions to be translated.

2. Where the holder has no registered office or registered office in Spain, the translation must be carried out by an Agent of Industrial Property accredited to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office or by a Traductor/a-Interprete Jurado/a appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. Other validation criteria may be established in order to ensure the authenticity and fidelity of the translations mentioned in this article.

Article 155. Translation and publication of the European patent.

1. Where the European Patent Office grants a European patent designating Spain, its holder shall provide the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office with a translation into Spanish of the European patent as it has been granted. Translation should also be provided in cases where the patent has been kept in a modified form, or limited by the European Patent Office.

2. The translation shall be sent to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office within three months from the date of publication in the "European Patent Bulletin" of the indication that the patent has been granted, modified or limited in the assumptions referred to in paragraph 1. A copy of the drawings in your case must accompany the translation, even if it does not contain expressions to translate. The provisions of paragraph 2 of the preceding Article shall apply.

In the absence of such translation and the payment of the fee for publication within the prescribed period, the patent will not produce effects in Spain.

3. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, within one month of the date of referral of the translation, will publish an indication of the same in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property", with the necessary data for the identification of the European patent and, after payment of the relevant fee, a prospectus with the translation of the European patent.

Article 156. Register of European Patents.

1. As soon as the granting of the European patent has been mentioned in the "European Patent Bulletin", the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will register it in its Register, with the data mentioned in the European Patent Register.

2. They shall also be the subject of registration, the date on which the translation referred to in Article 155 has been received and published or, where appropriate, the lack of such translation. The data referred to in the European Patent Register relating to the procedures for opposition, appeal or limitation, as well as the data provided for Spanish patents, shall also be entered.

Article 157. Full text of the European patent application and the European patent.

1. The translation into Spanish of the European patent application and the European patent, in compliance with the requirements set out in the preceding articles, shall be deemed to be authentic if the translated text confers a lesser protection than that which is granted by that application or by such patent in the language in which the application was lodged.

2. At all times, a review of the translation can be carried out by the holder of the application or the patent, which will not take effect until it is published by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office. Such publication shall not be made if the payment of the corresponding fee has not been justified.

3. Any person who, in good faith, begins to exploit an invention or has made effective and serious preparations for this, without such exploitation constituting an infringement of the application or the patent in accordance with the text of the initial translation, be able to continue without any compensation with the holding in your company or for the needs of the company.

Article 158. Transformation of the European patent application into a national patent application.

1. A European patent application can be transformed into a national patent application:

(a) In the cases provided for in Article 135.1.a) of the EPC.

(b) Where it is deemed to be withdrawn pursuant to Article 90.3 of the EPC in so far as it relates to Article 14.2 of the EPC.

2. The European patent application is considered, from the date of receipt by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office of the request for transformation, as a national patent application and will have as a filing date the one granted by the Office European Patent Application for a European patent application.

3. The patent application shall be withdrawn if the payment of the fees payable for a Spanish patent application at the time of filing is not justified in the time and conditions provided for in the Regulation of this Law and no one is provided with a translation into Spanish of the original text of the European patent application or, where appropriate, of the amended text in the course of the proceedings before the European Patent Office, on which the procedure for granting to the Office is to be found Spanish Patent and Trademark. Article 154.2 shall apply to the translation.

Article 159. Transformation of the European patent application into a utility model application.

1. The European patent application may be transformed into a Spanish utility model application where the application has been refused or withdrawn, or has been considered withdrawn, in accordance with the provisions of the EPC.

2. The provisions of paragraphs 2 and 3 of the preceding Article shall apply, in relation to utility models.

Article 160. Double protection ban.

1. To the extent that a national patent has as its object an invention for which a European patent with effect in Spain has been granted to the same inventor or his successor, with the same filing date or priority, the patent It stops producing effects from the moment that:

(a) The deadline for formulating opposition of the European patent has expired, without any opposition being formulated.

(b) The opposition procedure is over, with the European patent remaining.

2. In the event that the national patent has been granted after any of the dates referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b), this patent shall not produce any effect.

3. The termination or subsequent cancellation of the European patent shall not determine that the national patent is having its effects.

Article 161. Annuities.

1. For any European patent having an effect in Spain, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall be paid the annuities provided for in the legislation in force in the field of national patents.

2. Annuities shall be payable in the OEPM from the year of the life of the patent following that in which the mention of the European patent has been published in the "European Patent Bulletin".

3. Without prejudice to Article 141.2 of the EPC, the payment of annuities shall be effected by applying the accrual, period, amount, form and other conditions laid down in the legislation in force for national patents.

CHAPTER II

Application of the Patent Cooperation Treaty

Section 1-Scope of application and international applications deposited in Spain

Article 162. Scope of application.

1. This Chapter shall apply to international applications within the meaning of Article 2 of the Treaty of Cooperation in the field of patents, for which the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office acts as a receiving office, designated office or designated office.

2. The provisions of this Law and of its Rules of Procedure shall apply to applications which they appoint to Spain and which have commenced their proceedings before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, in all that they do not object to the said Treaty.

Article 163. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office as the Receiving Office.

1. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall act as the Receiving Office, within the meaning of Article 2.xv) of the Treaty of Cooperation in the field of patents, in respect of international applications by Spanish nationals or persons having their registered office or its registered office in Spain.

2. In the case of inventions made in Spain, and the priority of a previous deposit in Spain is not claimed, the international application must be filed with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office. Failure to comply with this obligation will deprive the international application of its effects in Spain.

When the applicant has its registered office or registered office or habitual residence in Spain, it is presumed, unless proof to the contrary, that the invention was carried out on Spanish territory.

3. The international application submitted in Spain will be written in Spanish. In addition to the fees prescribed by that Treaty, the deposit of the international application shall give rise to the payment of the rate of transmission provided for in the Annex to this Law and the Implementing Regulation of the Treaty.

Article 164. Conversion of international applications.

1. International applications deposited with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall apply to them the rules contained in Title XI of this Law.

2. If Spain is designated, if the authorization of the Ministry of Defense provided for in Article 111 is not granted, the international application shall be considered from its date of deposit as a national application. In this case, the rate of transmission shall be considered as a national filing fee.

3. The foregoing paragraphs shall not apply where the international application claims the priority of a previous national application whose content or processing is not kept secret by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

Article 165. Claim priority of previous deposit in Spain.

If the international application claims the priority of an earlier deposit in Spain, the priority document issued by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office may, at the request of the applicant under the conditions laid down in the implementing regulation of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, to be transmitted directly to the International Bureau. The application shall be subject to the fee set out in the Annex to this Law to be paid by the applicant to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

Article 166. Extension of time limits for the payment of fees.

The payment of the fees made in response to an invitation addressed to the applicant, pursuant to the provisions of the Implementing Regulation of the Treaty will be subject to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, to the the late payment fee provided for in Rule 16.bis.2. This fee shall be paid within one month of the date of notification of the invitation and the amount shall be determined in each case in accordance with the criteria laid down in that Regulation.

Section 2. th International applications designating or choosing Spain

Article 167. Action of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office as a Designated or Eligible Office.

The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall act in the capacity of Office Designated or Elected within the meaning of Article 2.xiii) and xiv) of the Patent Cooperation Treaty when Spain has been mentioned for that purpose, with for the purpose of obtaining a national patent, in the international application, or in the international preliminary examination request.

Article 168. Date of filing and effects of the international application.

An international application designating Spain will have, from the moment it has been granted an international filing date pursuant to Article 11 of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the effects of a national application regularly filed with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office from that date. This date shall be deemed to be effective in Spain.

Article 169. Processing of the international application.

1. For the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office to initiate the processing of the international application, it must be submitted within the time limit applicable pursuant to Article 22 or Article 39.1 of the Patent Cooperation Treaty of the same to the Spanish, as originally deposited and, where appropriate, the amendments made pursuant to Article 19 or Article 34 of the said Treaty.

2. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office may ask the applicant, if it considers it necessary in the specific case, to deliver within the period specified in the translation of the international application visada by an Agent of Industrial Property accredited to that Office or by a Traductor// Interpreter Jury/appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. Other validation criteria may be established in order to ensure the authenticity and fidelity of the translations mentioned in this article.

3. The applicant shall, within the time limit laid down in paragraph 1, pay the fees per application and for the implementation of the report on the state of the art provided for in national patents.

Article 170. Publication of the international application.

1. The publication, in accordance with Article 21 of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, of an international application for which the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office acts as the Designated Office replaces the publication of the National patent application.

2. If the international application has been published in Spanish, the provisional protection provided for in Article 67 of this Law shall take effect in respect of such application from the date of the international publication. If it has been in another language, provisional protection shall take effect from the date on which its translation into Spanish, carried out under the conditions of Article 154.2, is made available to the public in the Spanish Office of Patents and Marks. For these purposes, a mention of the date from which the translation of the application is made available to the public will be published in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property".

Article 171. Review by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

1. Where a Receiving Office other than the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office has refused an international filing date for an international application designating or choosing Spain, or has declared that such application is considered to be withdrawn, or the designation of Spain, pursuant to Articles 25.1.a) or 25.1.b) of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, is considered to be withdrawn, the applicant may ask the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office within two months from the date of the date of the notification, review the question and decide whether the refusal or declaration was justified in accordance with the provisions of that Treaty. This review may result in a decision by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office to process the application at national stage.

2. The review provided for in the preceding paragraph may, under the same conditions, be requested if the international application designating or elects Spain has been deemed to have been withdrawn by the International Bureau under the Article 12.3 of the Treaty of Cooperation in the field of patents.

Article 172. Effects of a patent granted on the basis of an international application.

1. A patent granted by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office on the basis of an international application, designating or choosing Spain, will have the same effects and the same value as a patent granted on the basis of a national application. deposited in accordance with this Law.

2. Where, due to incorrect translation, the scope of a patent granted on the basis of an international application exceeds the content of the international application in its original language, the scope of the application shall be limited retroactively. patent, declaring itself null and void to the extent that it exceeds its corresponding according to the application in its original language.

Article 173. Effects of the granting of a patent based on an international application for a patent based on a national application.

1. To the extent that a patent based on a national application has as its object an invention for which a patent has been granted on the basis of an international application, the same inventor or his successor as the same date of presentation or priority, the patent based on a national application will cease to produce effects from the grant of the patent based on the international application.

2. The patent shall not produce effects on the basis of a national application where it is granted after the date of grant of the patent based on an international application.

3. The termination or subsequent cancellation of the patent based on the international application does not affect the provisions provided for in this article.

Article 174. The Spanish Office as an International Search and Preliminary Examination Administration.

The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will act as the Administration in charge of the International Search and in the capacity of the Administration in charge of the International Preliminary Examination in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty cooperation on patents, in accordance with the agreement concluded between the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office and the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

TITLE XV

Representation to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office

Article 175. Capacity and representation.

1. They may act before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office:

(a) The persons concerned with the capacity to act in accordance with the provisions of Title III of Law 30/1992, of 26 November, of the Legal Regime of Public Administrations and of the Common Administrative Procedure.

b) The Agents of Industrial Property.

2. Without prejudice to Article 7.2 of the Treaty on the Law of Patents, which was made in Geneva on 1 June 2000, non-residents of a Member State of the European Union shall act by means of an Industrial Property Agent.

Article 176. Agents of Industrial Property.

1. The Agents of Industrial Property are the legally qualified persons who as liberal professionals offer and habitually provide their services to advise, assist and represent third parties in obtaining the various modalities of Industrial Property and in defense before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office of the rights derived therefrom.

2. Agents may exercise their activity individually or through legal persons validly constituted in accordance with the law of a Member State of the European Union and whose head office or principal place of business is located on Community territory. Both the Agents and the legal persons through which they exercise their activity may register in the Special Register of Agents of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

3. In order for a legal person to obtain the registration in the Special Register of Agents of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, at least one of the members or associates thereof must prove the status of Agent according to the provisions of the following Article. The registered legal person shall lose the right to exercise this professional activity if that requirement is no longer fulfilled.

4. They shall be responsible for the professional management that is developed under the social or associative form both the legal person and the Agent acting through it.

5. The Agents of Industrial Property shall be obliged to maintain the confidentiality of the cases in which they intervene and shall have the right to refuse to disclose the communications exchanged with their clients or with third parties concerning the procedures followed by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

Among others, any communication or any document relating to:

(a) the assessment of the patentability of an invention, the registrability of an industrial design, a mark or a commercial name;

b) the preparation or processing of a patent application, utility model, industrial design, brand name or commercial name;

(c) any opinion concerning the validity, protection or infringement of the object of a patent, utility model, industrial design, trademark or trade name, as well as a request for any such modalities.

6. The representatives referred to in Article 175.1 and who are not agents of industrial property shall be bound by the same rules as set out in the preceding paragraph.

Article 177. Access to the profession of Industrial Property Agent.

1. To access the regulated profession of Industrial Property Agent it will be necessary:

a) Being older and having full ability to work.

b) Having an establishment or professional office in a Member State of the European Union.

(c) Not having been convicted of intentional crimes, unless rehabilitation has been obtained.

d) To be in possession of the official degrees of Degree, Licentiate, Architect or Engineer, issued by the Rectors of the Universities, or other official titles that are legally equated to them.

e) Overcome an examination of the aptitude for the knowledge necessary for the professional activity defined in the previous article, in the way that it is regulated.

2. The freedom of establishment in Spain for those who have acquired the professional qualification of an Industrial Property Agent in another Member State of the European Union shall be governed by the provisions of Community law and internal provisions for incorporation and development of the same, applying to such effects as provided for in Royal Decree 1837/2008 of 8 November.

Article 178. Incompatibilities.

The exercise of the profession of Agent of Industrial Property, either directly or through legal persons, is incompatible with all active employment in the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, in the Ministry of is dependent on the Ministry of Industry of the Autonomous Communities or on the bodies of the Autonomous Communities that have assumed competence in the field of Industrial Property, and on International Organizations related to Industrial Property.

Article 179. Exercise of the professional activity and Special Register of Agents and the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

1. In order to initiate the exercise of the activity as Agent of Industrial Property, directly or through legal person, it will be necessary to have previously presented to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office a responsible declaration in the which, in accordance with the provisions of the implementing regulation of this Law, the person concerned shows under his responsibility that he fulfils all the conditions laid down in Articles 176 and 177 and is not in breach of the incompatibilities of the Article 178, which has the documentation which so credits it and which undertakes to maintain its compliance as long as there is no discharge in respect of any of the circumstances provided for in Article 180.

Compliance with these requirements enables the exercise of professional activity throughout the national territory and for an indefinite period.

2. The documentation of compliance with the legal requirements must be available for presentation to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office when required. For this purpose, documents from another Member State of the European Union which demonstrate compliance with those requirements shall be accepted in accordance with the terms laid down in Article 17.2 of Law 17/2009 of 23 November on free access. to the activities of services and their exercise.

3. Upon receipt of the declaration referred to in paragraph 1, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, after payment of the corresponding fee, shall register the Agent in its Special Register of Industrial Property Agents as representatives legally entitled to act as such to the same.

4. In their relations with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, the Agents must use their own name, followed by the indication of their status as Agent and, in the case of legal persons, of the social reason under which they act, as well as the corresponding registered office.

Article 180. Cessation of the qualification for the exercise of the activity of professional representation.

1. The cessation of legal empowerment to act as an Agent of Industrial Property may occur for any of the following reasons:

(a) By death, in the case of natural persons, or extinction, in that of legal persons.

b) By resignation filed in writing with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

c) By means of a reasoned decision of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, after verifying the non-compliance by the person concerned with the requirements required by this Law for his qualification as Agent. When this happens, the data subject may only refile a responsible statement, subject to accreditation of the aforementioned legal requirements.

d) By judicial resolution.

2. In all previous cases, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office will automatically cancel the corresponding registration in the Special Register of Agents of Industrial Property.

3. Where the cessation of legal entitlement occurs pursuant to paragraph 1 (c) and the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office checks the untruth, inaccuracy or omission of an essential character in the data required for the exercise of the activity The Office may instruct the Minister for Industry, Energy and Tourism to terminate the authorization for the exercise of professional representation for a period of time. maximum of three years.

4. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office may also discharge the Agent or the authorised representative in its Register and initiate the sanctioning file in the terms provided for in the preceding paragraph, when the Agent has been sentenced by a final judgment as a result of acts carried out in the exercise of his professional activity.

Article 181. Community freedom to provide services and information obligations.

1. Industrial Property Agents established in another Member State temporarily providing their services in Spain must comply with the rules on access and exercise of the profession approved by Royal Decree 1837/2008 of 8 November. incorporating Directive 2005 /36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 September 2005 and of Council Directive 2006 /100/EC of 20 November 2006 on the recognition of professional qualifications, as well as certain aspects of the exercise of the profession of lawyer and the legislation that develops it, and must submit a prior declaration according to the model approved by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, which must be renewed annually in case of continued service provision.

2. Persons registered in the Special Register of Agents of Industrial Property shall inform the recipients of their services in the terms established by Article 22 of Law 17/2009 of 23 November on the free access to service activities and their exercise, and comply with the obligations laid down in that Law.

TITLE XVI

Rates and Annuities

Article 182. Fees.

1. The bases and rates of charge of the fees for the performance of the services, benefits and administrative activities on Industrial Property in the field of patents, utility models and complementary certificates of protection of medicines and of plant protection products shall be those listed in the Annex to this Law, of which it forms an integral part. The amounts set out in that Annex shall be subject to the updating that is established by ordinary law or by the corresponding General State Budget Law for fees in general.

Your regulation will be subject to the provisions of this Law, and as soon as they do not object to the provisions of this Law, in Law 17/1975, of May 2, on the creation of the Autonomous Body "Registry of Industrial Property", in the Law 8/1989, of 13 April, of Public Fees and Prices, and in Law 58/2003, of 17 December, General Tax and Supplementary Provisions.

2. Failure to pay the fee within the statutory or statutory time limit shall effectively deprive the act for which it is due to be paid.

3. If an established fee for the processing of the file for the granting of any of the securities regulated in this Law is no longer paid, the application shall be deemed to have been withdrawn.

Article 183. Reimbursement of fees.

1. In the event that the patent application or other protection title provided for in this Law is withdrawn, is withdrawn or denied prior to the commencement of the corresponding provision, service or administrative activity, it shall be returned to the requester the rates respectively paid by these concepts, with the exception of the application fee.

2. When the report on the state of the art can be based either partially or wholly on the international search report carried out under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the applicant shall be reimbursed for 25%, 50 per cent. percent, 75 percent or 100 percent of the rate, depending on the scope of the report.

3. Where the substantive examination may be partially or wholly based on the international preliminary examination report carried out by the Responsible International Preliminary Examination Administration, the applicant shall be reimbursed 25%, 50 per cent, 75 per cent or 100 per cent of that rate, depending on the scope of the said report.

4. The interposition of an appeal shall give rise to the payment of the appeal fee. No refund of the fee shall be made unless the appeal is wholly estimated by the use of legal reasons unduly appreciated in the contested decision which are attributable to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office. The refund of the fee shall be requested when the appeal is lodged and shall be agreed upon in the decision of the appeal.

Article 184. Annuities and maintenance fee.

1. In order to maintain in force a patent or utility model or a supplementary protection certificate, the applicant or the holder of the patent shall pay the annuities, or in the case of the supplementary certificates the maintenance fee, which are listed in the Annex referred to in Article 182.1.

2. Annuities must be paid for years ahead, for the duration of the patent or utility model. The accrual date of each annuity shall be the last day of the month of the anniversary of the filing date of the application.

3. The payment of the annuities written prior to the publication of the grant of the patent in the "Official Journal of Industrial Property" shall be made within three months after the date of such publication.

The payment of the annuities due after the publication of the grant of the patent or on the same date shall be made within three months after the date of accrual of the corresponding annuity.

Due to the time limit for the payment of an annuity without having made the amount effective, it will be possible to pay the same with the corresponding surcharge within the next six months.

However, for annuities whose date of accrual is later than the date of publication of the concession in the "Official Journal of the Industrial Property" or coincident with the same, and for the time that elapses from the end of the period with surcharge up to the date of accrual of the following annuity, the payment may be regularised by paying the rate of regularisation provided for in the second rate of this Law, the amount of which will be added to the second of the surcharges foreseen in Article 185.

4. The fee to be paid for the filing of the patent application or the utility model exonerates the payment of the first two annuities.

5. The date of accrual of the maintenance fee for the supplementary protection certificates or their extension shall be that of their entry into force.

When the date of accrual is prior to the date of publication in the "Official Journal of the Industrial Property" of the award of the certificate or, in the case of the extension, the payment shall be made within three months after the date of the publication of the certificate. to the date of publication.

When the accrual date matches or is later than the date of publication the payment shall be made within three months after the date of accrual.

Due to the time limit for the payment of the maintenance fee without having made the amount effective, the same may be paid with the corresponding surcharge within the next six months.

Article 185. Surcharges.

1. After the deadline for the payment of an annuity without having satisfied its amount, it may be paid with a surcharge of 25% within the first three months and 50% within the following three months, up to a maximum of six months. months of delay.

2. After the period of payment of the maintenance fee for the supplementary certificates or the extension of the supplementary certificate for the protection of medicinal products without having satisfied the amount, it may be paid with a surcharge of 25 per cent. In the first three months, up to a maximum of six months of delay, within the first three months of the first three months.

Article 186. Reduction of fees.

1. Entrepreneurs who, having the consideration of a natural person or small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs), wish to obtain the protection of an invention by national patent or utility model may request that they be granted satisfying the 50 (a) a percentage of the fees established for the application, the third, fourth and fifth annuities, and in the case of national patents, a request for a report on the state of the art and substantive examination.

To do this, the request for a national patent or utility model, the request for a reduction of fees and credit, with the documentation required to be regulated, which comply with the definition of The European Commission's proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the protection of the environment and the environment and the definition of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adopted by Recommendation 2003 /361/EC of the European Commission of 6 May on the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises or to which, in the event of modification or replacement of the same, applicable at the time the application is submitted.

2. Applications or documents submitted by electronic means shall be reduced by 15% in the amount of the fees to which those applications are subject and written, if they are submitted and the fees are paid prior to or at the same time by those technical means.

3. Other exemptions or reductions other than those expressly recognised in this Law or those which, where appropriate, are established by or in respect of international agreements or treaties, shall not be permitted.

Additional disposition first. Legal status of the procedures.

The administrative procedures provided for in this Law will be governed by its specific regulations, and as not provided for in it, by the provisions of Law 30/1992, of 26 November, of the Legal Regime of the Administrations Public and the Common Administrative Procedure.

Additional provision second. Maximum time limits for the resolution of Industrial Property procedures.

1. In accordance with the provisions of article 59.3 of Law 2/2011, of 4 March, of Sustainable Economy, the maximum deadlines for the resolution of the administrative procedures for granting and registering the various modalities of Industrial Property shall be drawn up by the Minister for Industry, Energy and Tourism, on a proposal from the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

2. In the mode change assumptions, the maximum resolution time will start to be computed from the presentation date of the documentation for the new mode.

3. Where the period for carrying out a procedure in one of the procedures laid down in the laws governing the various forms of industrial property expires on Saturday, the procedure in question may be validly effected on the first working day. next to that Saturday.

4. The expiry of the maximum period of time for resolving an application without the notification of an express decision shall legitimise the person concerned to understand the reasons for which the administrative appeal is to be brought into question. administrative disputes arising from the case. The presumed dismissal in no case shall exclude the duty to issue express resolution, which shall be adopted without any connection to the sense of silence.

Additional provision third. Preferential processing of requests.

On a proposal from the Spanish Patent Office and by order of the Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism the preferential processing of patent applications and utility models for technologies can be arranged related to the sustainability objectives set out in Law 2/2011 of 4 March on Sustainable Economy.

Additional provision fourth. Fees for the action of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

The amount of the fees that, as provided for in the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), establishes each Office for its action as the Receiving Office and the International PCT Administration will be, as far as the Office Spanish Patent and Trademark refers, as indicated in the annex to this Law.

The rest of the fees applicable by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office under this Treaty will be those laid down in the PCT Treaty Regulation, in the Agreement between the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office and the International Office of the World Intellectual Property Organization on the functioning of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office as a PCT International Administration, as well as the Special Agreement between the European Organization of Patents and the Government of the Kingdom of Spain concerning Cooperation in matters relating to the PCT, that are in effect when the corresponding service is requested.

Additional provision fifth. Advertisement of requests and resolutions and public consultation of files.

1. The publication of applications and decisions for the award of the titles of Industrial Property shall include the name of the applicant or holder, in the case of natural persons, or the name or social name in the case of persons legal, as well as their nationality and postal address.

2. Once the applications have been published, the documents incorporating the files of the corresponding titles may be consulted without the consent of the applicants or dealers of the same or of the other parties interveners.

The public consultation may be carried out in person or through telematic means and subject to the legal or regulatory constraints established in the current legislation on Industrial Property.

3. The public consultation shall necessarily include that of the data necessary to identify the holder of the application or the right of Industrial Property and to contact him, as well as to the parties personated or intervenes in the proceedings, and in the name and surname, in the case of natural persons, their name or social reason in the case of legal persons and their postal address.

4. The public consultation may include the telephone and the tax identification number unless the person concerned expresses the opinion of the person concerned.

5. The parties or documents in the file whose confidentiality has been requested by the person concerned in advance of the request for consultation shall be exempted from the public consultation, provided that:

1. Do not respond to the public information purposes of the Patent Registry and

2. Your query is not justified by legitimate and preponderant interests of the requesting party.

Additional provision sixth. Accelerated grant programs.

1. The Directorate of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office may establish by means of instruction accelerated grant of patents for those applications which do not claim priority of previous applications and in respect of which the interested:

a) You expressly welcome the accelerated grant program for patents.

(b) Present the application for advance publication and the request for examination, paying the corresponding fees, either with the application, or within the time limit that is regulated.

In the event that the application presents defects, the OEPM shall inform the applicant and give the applicant a period of time to correct any defects found. After the expiry of the period without the defects being corrected, the application for accelerated grant shall be deemed not to have been made and the procedure shall continue on the usual route outside the accelerated concession programme.

2. Neither the application for accelerated processing by the applicant nor the application of the programme by the body responsible for processing shall be motivated.

Additional provision seventh. Coordination with the competent bodies of the Autonomous Communities.

The Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism will establish the appropriate coordination and cooperation mechanisms between the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office and the Autonomous Communities competent to receive the corresponding applications to that Office. The competent authority of the Autonomous Community, through which the documentation has been submitted, shall be kept informed throughout the procedure after the application has been published. To this end, intercom and coordination systems shall be established for the relevant Registers which ensure the IT compatibility and the telematic transmission of the seats.

Additional disposition octave. Telematic communications with Courts and Courts.

1. Documents to be submitted to the Courts and Courts for inclusion in any type of procedure shall be sent in electronic form in accordance with the provisions on electronic communications in Law 18/2011, 5 of In July, the Committee on the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in the Administration of Justice will regulate the use of information and communication technologies, provided that they have the necessary IT systems for their reception and through the closed environments of (a) to ensure that the safety and security of the persons concerned are protected; the data and/or documents transmitted.

2. Public or private electronic documents shall be incorporated as an annex to the main document, following the systems provided for in this Law or in its implementing rules and in accordance with the provisions of Law 59/2003 of 19 December electronic.

Additional provision ninth. Exercise of shares based on securities the grant of which is not firm on an administrative basis.

1. Article 120.4 shall apply, in any event, to any of the parties to the proceedings which have as their object the exercise of actions whether they are nullity or infringement of the patent, where the title is modified outside the process as the consequence of a final administrative decision on the granting of the title in which the action is founded.

2. If the final decision is under appeal on a judicial-administrative basis, Article 42 of Law 1/2000 of 7 January of Civil Procedure shall apply.

Additional provision 10th. Application of the rate regime for obtaining and maintaining the securities provided for in this Law.

1. Public universities will be entitled to a 50% bonus in the amount of the fees paid for obtaining and maintaining industrial property securities regulated in this Law and requested after the entry into force of the same.

2. The bonus shall be one hundred per cent, provided they prove that within the time limit laid down in Article 90.2 there has been a real and effective economic exploitation of the patent or utility model. In this case, universities may request the refund of the amount of the fees paid, in the terms that are regulated.

First transient disposition. Transitional arrangements for procedures.

1. The administrative procedures provided for in this Law and initiated prior to its entry into force shall be dealt with and resolved in accordance with the legal regulations in force at the date of filing of the corresponding applications.

2. For such purposes, in the case of a division, change of modality or transformation of an application, the date of filing shall be deemed to be the date of submission of the original application.

Second transient disposition. Rules applicable to the titles of protection of inventions granted in accordance with previous legislation.

To the titles of protection of the inventions requested under the validity of Law 11/1986, of March 20, of Patents the provisions contained in the titles and chapters of this Law will apply to them. enunciate below:

1. Chapter V of Title V "Provisions common to all procedures and information of third parties" to the extent that such procedures relate to actions after the award of the title.

2. Title VI, "Effects of Patent and Patent Application"; Title VII, "Actions for Violation of Patent Law"; Title VIII, "Patent and Patent Application as Property Rights Objects"; Title IX, "Obligation to exploit and compulsory licences"; Title X, "Nullity, revocation and revocation of the patent"; Title XII, "Jurisdiction and procedural rules"; Title XIV, "Application of International Conventions".

3. Chapter III of Title XIII "Effects of the concession" with the exception of the causes of nullity referred to in Article 149.1.a) which shall be as provided for in Articles 153.1.a) of Law 11/1986 of 20 March Patents.

Transitional provision third. Fees and annuities.

1. The basis and rates of charge for the fees referred to in Article 182.1 shall be those in force at the time of the application or the application for the service, provision or administrative activity concerned.

2. The period for the payment of the annuities of the patents granted under the previous Law, whose date of accrual is equal to or after the date of entry into force of this Law and have not been paid before that date, shall be the provided for in Article 184.3.

3. The reduction of fees provided for in Article 186.1 shall apply to applications for patents and utility models submitted after the entry into force of this Law.

4. Article 186 (3) shall apply to applications submitted after the entry into force of this Law.

5. The application and maintenance fees for supplementary protection certificates shall be in force at the time of application for the certificate or the extension of the certificate.

Transitional disposition fourth. Harmless disclosures.

Applications submitted within six months after the entry into force of this Law will apply to them in Article 7 of Law 11/1986, of March 20, of Patents.

Transient disposition fifth. Application of the regime on the exploitation and disposal of inventions by the Public Research Entes.

The references in Royal Decree 55/2002 of 18 January on the exploitation and disposal of inventions carried out in the public research entities, in accordance with the provisions of Article 20 of Law 11/1986, of 20 March, of Patents, are understood referred to in article 21 of this Law.

Transitional disposition sixth. Court actions.

Judicial actions that have been initiated prior to the entry into force of this Law will be followed by the same procedure under which they would have been initiated.

Single repeal provision. Regulatory repeal.

It is hereby repealed, with the exception of the provisions of the transitional provisions, the Law 11/1986 of 20 March, of Patents and any provisions of equal or lower rank shall be contrary to the provisions of this Law.

Final disposition first. Amendment of the Law of 16 December 1954 on mortgage and clothing without displacement of possession.

Articles forty-five and forty-six of the Law of 16 December 1954 on a mortgage and garment without a posting of possession are hereby written as follows:

" Article forty-five.

1. The rights protected by Industrial Property legislation such as patents, topographies of semiconductor products, trade marks, trade names, industrial designs, plant varieties and others may be subject to mortgage. any typical modes, in accordance with their Regulatory Law.

2. The mortgage guarantee may be lodged either by the owner or by the licensee with the right to give up his right to a third party, both on the right itself and on the application for the granting of the right. They may give their respective rights to their respective rights the licensees who hold licenses in their entirety or in any of the powers that make up the exclusive right, for the entire national territory or for a part of the same; with the exclusive or non-exclusive license condition.

3. They are not liable for mortgage payments for the industrial property rights registrable but not registered, the personal rights, devoid of patrimonial or non-rentable content and, in general, those that are not susceptible to appropriation individual.

4. The guarantee extends to the rights and improvements resulting from the addition, modification or improvement of the registered rights.

5. Immediately after having practiced the respective seats in the Register of Furniture, the Registrar shall transmit the certificate of its contents to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office for its record in the latter and coordination between the two advertising services. The registrant's warranty is deemed to be the effects provided for in this Law since it is registered in the Furniture Register.

6. In respect of domain names on the Internet, the rules of their respective registry will be available, not being able to tax with mortgage the rights not susceptible to voluntary disposal in accordance with the provisions of the applicable rules.

7. The rules of this Chapter lay down the common rules for the mortgage on industrial property rights and on mortgages on rights protected by intellectual property legislation to which the refers to the following article. "

" Article forty-six.

1. A mortgage may be imposed on the exploitation rights of the work as well as on all the rights and modalities of the intellectual property of heritage content which are capable of inter-living transmission in accordance with its Regulatory law. The exploitation rights of a cinematographic work in the terms provided for in the Law may also be secured to mortgage.

2. The guarantee may be lodged either by the owner or by the transferee, exclusively or as a partial transferee, provided that he has the right to dispose of his right to a third party.

3. They are not liable for mortgage payments for the intellectual property rights registrable but not registered as well as the personal rights such as the so-called moral right of author, the non-enajenables and in general those that are not susceptible to individual appropriation.

4. Unless otherwise agreed in the contract, the warranty on the original work does not extend to translations and adaptations; revisions, updates or annotations; compendiums, abstracts or extracts; musical arrangements or which want transformations of the work. Such changes may be subject to so many separate guarantees.

5. Immediately after having practiced the respective seats in the Register of Furniture, the Registrar shall transmit the certificate of its contents to the competent public register where the form of Property is registered Industrial sector of the guarantee for its recording and the coordination between the advertising services. The movable mortgage is reputed to be the effects provided for in this Law since it is registered in the Register of Furniture. "

Final disposition second. Amendment of Law 17/1975 of 2 May on the creation of the autonomous body "Registration of Industrial Property".

In Law 17/1975 of 2 May, on the creation of the autonomous body "Registry of Industrial Property", paragraph six of the second article is amended and a new paragraph seven is added to the same article, with the following wording:

" Six. To act as mediator and arbitration institution, and in accordance with the provisions of Law 5/2012, of July 6, of mediation in civil and commercial matters and Law 60/2003, of December 23, of Arbitration, the functions that by royal decree attribute to the settlement of disputes relating to the acquisition, use, procurement and defence of Industrial Property rights in matters not excluded from the free disposal of the parties under the law.

Seven. Any other function which the legislation in force currently confers on the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office or those which are expressly entrusted to it in matters of its competence. "

Final disposition third. Amendment of Law 17/2001 of 7 December of Marks.

The additional provision of Law 17/2001, of 7 December, of Marks, is worded as follows:

" Additional disposition first. Jurisdiction and procedural rules.

1. The current rules contained in Title XII of Law 24/2015, of July 24, of Patents will apply to the different modalities of distinctive signs of this Law in all that which is not incompatible with its own nature, without prejudice to the provisions of the following paragraph.

2. The Courts of the Commercial which, in accordance with the Organic Law 6/1985, of July 1, of the Judiciary, have been assigned the functions of Courts of Community Mark in application of the Regulation (EC) No 207/2009, of the Council, of 26 February 2009, on the Community trade mark, shall be competent to hear of civil disputes arising out of this Law when actions relating to identical or international Community and national or international trade marks are exercised in a cumulative manner. similar; or if there is any other connection between the claims and at least one of them is based in a Community trade mark application or registration. In such cases, the jurisdiction shall be the exclusive responsibility of the Community Trade Mark Courts. "

Final disposition fourth. Amendment of Law 20/2003 of 7 July on Legal Protection of Industrial Design.

Articles 24, 29, 76, the Additional Disposition first and the Annex to the fees of Law 20/2003 of July 7 on Legal Protection of Industrial Design are amended as follows:

Article 24. Right of Unionist Priority.

A new paragraph 4 is added with the following wording:

" 4. The submission of the copy of the previous application or of the translation shall not be necessary where the claim of priority is not considered relevant for determining the validity of the registered design or the previous application or its translation is already held by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office or available in a digital library or database. "

Article 29.

Article 29 (1) "Office of the Office" shall be amended as follows:

" 1. After the examination of form and, where appropriate, received the application submitted by the competent authority of the autonomous community, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall examine ex officio:

(a) If the object of the application constitutes a design in accordance with the provisions of Article 1 (2) (a) of this Law.

b) If the design whose registration is requested is contrary to public order or good customs.

(c) If the design whose registration is requested is an improper use of any of the elements referred to in paragraph (e) of Article 13 of this Law. "

Article 76.

Paragraphs 4 and 5 of Article 76 "Refusal and granting of protection in Spain" are amended as follows:

" 4. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office shall notify the International Bureau, in the form and time limit laid down in the said Geneva Act, of the reasons for refusing the effects of the international registration in Spain.

5. In the event that the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office has not refused protection in Spain after the examination of its own motion or an opposition procedure, the protection conferred by the international registration of a design will produce effects from the date of publication by the International Bureau. The holder of the international registration shall have the same rights and remedies as the applicant or holder of a national registry. '

Additional disposition first. Jurisdiction and procedural rules.

The additional first provision is worded as follows:

" 1. Without prejudice to paragraph 2, the rules in force contained in Title XII of Law 24/2015 of 24 July of Patents shall apply as regards the exercise of actions arising from this Law and the adoption of provisional and precautionary measures, in any case that is not incompatible with the provisions of the same.

2. The Courts of the Commercial, which, in accordance with the Law of the Judicial Branch, have the functions of the Courts of Community Mark in application of Regulation (EC) No 6/2002, of the Council of 12 December 2001 on the drawings and Community models shall be competent to know of the civil disputes arising from this Law where actions based on Community and national or international evidence on the same or similar design are carried out in a cumulative manner; or if there is any other connection between the claims and at least one of them is based on a registration or application for a Community title. In such cases, the jurisdiction shall be the exclusive responsibility of the Community Trade Mark Courts. "

Rates Attachment.

Amendment of the first rate of the rate annex provided for in the third provision of Law 20/2003, of July 7, of Legal Protection of Industrial Design.

Heading 1.7 of the first rate is amended as follows:

" 1.7 Oppositions: by statement of opposition: 43.70 euros.

For the additional designs challenged in the same opposition formulation from the 10th:

From 11 to 20 designs: 34.96 euros

From 21 to 30 designs: 27.96 euros

From 31 to 40 designs: EUR 22.37

From 41 to 50 designs: 17.89 euros. "

Final disposition fifth. Amendment of Law 2/2014 of 25 March of the Action and of the State's Foreign Service.

The additional tenth sixth provision of Law 2/2014, of 25 March, of the Action and of the State's Foreign Service, is worded as follows:

" Additional Disposition 10th 6th. Official translations and interpretations.

1. Regulations will determine the requirements for translations and interpretations of a foreign language into Spanish and vice versa. In any case, they will have this character if they have been made by those who are in possession of the title of Traductor-Performer Jurado that is awarded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. The requirements for the granting of this title, as well as the other elements that make up its legal status, will be developed regulatively.

2. The official character of a translation or interpretation implies that the translation or interpretation may be provided to judicial and administrative bodies in terms that are determined by law.

3. The Translator-Interpreter Jury will certify with his signature and seal the fidelity and accuracy of translation and interpretation.

4. Translation and interpretation by a Traductor-Interpreter Jurado may be reviewed by the Language Interpretation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation at the request of the holder of the administrative, judicial, registration or competent authority to whom it is presented. '

Final disposition sixth. Competence title.

This law is dictated by the state competence provided for in article 149.1.9. of the Constitution on Industrial Property law. Title VII, Title XII, the ninth additional provision, the sixth transitional provision, the second and third and fourth final provisions, which are covered by Article 149.1.6. of the Constitution which confers on the State the exclusive competence on procedural law.

Also, the first final provision, which is covered by Article 149.1.8. of the Constitution, which attributes exclusive competence to the State on civil legislation, without prejudice to the conservation, modification and development by the Autonomous Communities of civil, foral or special rights, wherever they exist.

Moreover, the fifth final provision is covered by Article 149.1.18, which confers exclusive jurisdiction on the State on the basis of the legal system of public administrations and the statutory system of its officials.

Final disposition seventh. Development of the Law.

The Government is authorised to make any provisions necessary for the development and implementation of this Law.

Final disposition octave. Safeguard clause.

The measures included in this Law will be met with the body's ordinary budget allocations and will not be able to increase the amount of appropriations or salaries or other personnel costs for the service of the sector. public.

Final disposition ninth. Entry into force.

This Act shall enter into force on 1 April 2017.

Therefore,

I command all Spaniards, individuals and authorities, to keep and keep this law.

Madrid, 24 July 2015.

FELIPE R.

The President of the Government,

MARIANO RAJOY BREY

ANNEX

The unified parafiscal charges and levies referred to in Article 10 of Law 17/1975 of 2 May on the creation of the autonomous body "Registry of Industrial Property", applied to services, services and services activities of the Registry of Industrial Property arising from this Law shall be as follows:

Rate. Maintaining and transmitting rights

803.93

third. Other services

Announcement in "BOPI" administrative litigation resource interposition

3.3 By the request for expert reports provided for in art. 120.7

of a fascicle (up to 22 pages)

Rate by Priority Document Transmission

		Euros
first. Rights acquisition and
1.1 Requests:
By the application for a patent deposit claim of invention or utility model, either directly or as a consequence of the division of an application including the insertion of the application into the "Official Industrial Property Bulletin"	100.38
By Protection Mode Change Request	10.30
By Request for Report on the Status of the technique	684.65
By substantive examination request	389.77
By submitting a review request or resource	88.09
Request for Urgent Resolution of a Case	47.39
105.35
By Request for Revocation or Limitation	74.19
or request review	88.09
application for enrollment in the Special Register of Industrial Property Agents	74.01
Per Request for Processing of Drug Protection Complementary Certificates-Plant Protection Products (CCP)	517.21
request for extension Complementary medicines protection certificates	517.21
1.2 Priority:
each priority claimed in patent and utility models	19.65
1.3 Modifications:
For any modification of the case, be it to the request, description or claims, be it subsequent contributions of documents or rectification of material errors, arithmetic or in fact and in general any modifications to the assumptions authorized by the Law	23.19
1.4 Contingent count:
By Reply to suspended due to formal defects of any type of case handled under this Law	42.06
1.5 Oppositions:
By submitting oppositions to the granting of patent files and utility models	43.27
2.1 Annuities:
3.	18.48
4. ª	23.06
5.	44.11
6. ª	65.10
7.	107.47
133.78
9.	167.88
216.06	216.06
270.82
12.	317.98
365.05
14.	412.56
.	440.59
16.	458.85
17.	490.00
18.	490.00
19.	490.00
490.00	490.00
2.1.1 Maintenance fees for medication protection and phytosanitary products supplementary certificates:
803.93
CCP equal to or less than two years
equal to or less than three years	2.661.05
	CCP of duration equal to or less than four years	3.731.05
	CCP for five years or less	4.908.12
or peer duration CCP extension less than one year	803.93
2.2 Demores and regularisation:
delays in annuity payments, top-ups of 25 per 100, within the three months, and 50 per 100, within the following three months, up to a maximum of six months ' delay. However, in the following six months and up to a maximum of time which coincides with the anniversary of the following annuity, the person concerned may regularise the payment of the unpaid annuity by paying the rate of regularisation established in This section.
By regularization on the payment of annuities provided for in Article 184.3	100.00
2.3 Exploitation and licenses:
the processing of patents and utility models	21.87
the processing of each of the full license offerings or mandatory license in the cases provided by the Act	19.68
mediation by the Office for obtaining a contractual license	131.14
2.4 Transfers:
For processing of transmission records of transmissions or of disposals or modifications. For each record made	13.24
2.5 By name change enrollment of the headline:
each record affected	16.38
3.1 For each certification of registered data relating to patents, utility models, or certificates supplementary protection or its extensions, as well as the issuing of the authorized copy of each of the documents permitted by the Law	20.60
3.2 Query and view of a case	3.56
Copying documents from a case	11.38
each page that exceeds 10
142.24
Announcement in "BOPI" administrative litigation resource failure	142.24
2,400
Fourth
4.1 European Patents:
the claims	107, 80
320.93
12.90
4.2 International Patents:
Rate	74,25
29.69
International Preliminary Examining Rate	583.65
International Preliminary Exam Rate	583.65