In Austria inventions, company labels and industrial
designs can be protected by Intellectual Property
Rights (IPR) like patents, utility models, trade marks
and registered designs. The Austrian Patent Office
(www.patentamt.at) is the national Centre of
Excellence which provides the protection for inventions
needed for safeguarding the interests of scientists.
Copyrights – the protection of creative and technical
expression – needs no special registration, it is generated by the creation of the opus itself. The copyright belongs solely to the creator.
Protection of inventions/company labels/designs in Austria
If you make an invention and want it protected in Austria there are two possibilities – a patent or a utility model. They both give the right for a limited period to exclude others from producing, using or selling the invention without permission. The right can be sold or transferred by licence.
Patents and utility models are basically territorial rights therefore limited to the state for which the protection is granted and limited to a max. of 20 years. An invention is patentable if it is novel, contains an inventive step and if it is capable of industrial application. A utility model (commercial right for technical inventions) involves no testing for novelty, the inventive process or commercial applicability – the protection through utility models is limited to a max. of 10 years and it is normally granted more quickly than a patent.
A company label can be protected by a trade mark – an independent property right which allows distinguishing of goods and services of different companies from one another. Trade marks can be protected for 10 years – this period may be extended indefinitely.
CETMOS, the Central European Trade Mark Observation Office (www.cetmos.eu) offers a survey of trademarks in force or pending in 9 participating Central and Eastern European countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) as well as in the register of Community Trade Marks valid in the territory of the European Union.
By registration of an industrial design, the appearance of a commercial product is protected (e.g. the shape of a mineral water bottle) – this is possible for 5 years which can be extended for four times up to a maximum of 25 years.
Community Trade Marks and designs can be registered at OHIM, the Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market (oami.europa.eu), the official trade marks and designs registration office of the European Union. The Community Trade Mark (CTM) and registered Community design (RCD) are perceived as the gateway to the European single market.
The Serv.IP of the Austrian Patent Office is a high-performance service centre which employs specialists when it comes to commercial legal protection.
For information regarding universities and inventions please see the website of uni:invent (in German only).
IPR-Issues at application stage
If the organisations wish to protect information or data already at the application stage , when submitting a proposal for a research project, it is to recommend that a contract or an agreement is signed before-hand. This could be a Letter of Intent, an Agreement of assignment of rights or a Confidentiality Agreement between the projectpartners– Model Agreements might be available at your organisation or the university.
For IP issues in the EU Framework Programme for Research please contact the IPR Helpdesk: www.ipr-helpdesk.org
Print this page