The patent is a contract between the applicant and the State in which the applicant undertakes to put the invention at disposal of the public after a reasonable period of time while the state gives him an exclusive right to exploit the invention.

In practice the patent is a legal instrument consisting of a technical report containing a detailed description of the invention and claims that define the aspects of the invention for which you require protection and that makes the invention feasible from a third party.

The legal protection deriving from patents is limited in time (20 years for the industrial patent, which may be raised to 25 only for patents in pharmaceuticals) and geographical (the protection is limited to the nation/s where the application has been registered).

In Italy and Europe cannot be patented::

• the inventions
• mathematical methods and theories
• plans, methods for performing intellectual acts, commercial and game
• software
• the presentation of information
• inventions against public order
• animal and vegetal races
• methods for the surgical or therapeutic treatments of the human or animal body

The Italian legislation foresees that an invention can be patented only if it meets the following requirements:

• Novelty : it is considered "new" anything that is not part of the "state of art" expression which includes any type of diffusion (eg doctoral and degree theses and discussion of same, posters, reports, conferences, etc..) where "spreading" means the manifestation of the invention in a way that can be implemented by an expert in the field. Hence there is no divulgation if the invention is shown to a person who is not in a position to act, or if the spreading is still incomplete or in a state that the invention is not feasible. There is no divulgation if the knowledge is given to third parties bound to secrecy (eg, through a contract of employment) as in the case of employees.
• Inventive or Originality : an invention meets such a requirement if, for a person skilled in the field, it is not so obvious from the state of the art. Unlike the novelty, the inventive activity is a subjective requirement that can be interpreted according to the views of the examiners of the patent applications. The invention should not be limited to proposing a solution that is only different from what is already known, nor should it be a mere evolution of well- known technology or knowledge but must solve hitherto unsolved problems, or problems already solved in different ways.
• Industriality : an invention is considered fit for an industrial application if its object can be made or used in any kind of industry, including the agriculture field. The use becomes a prerequisite for the biotechnological patent: It is not possible to patent any kind of biological material if not tied to a specific application
• Sufficient description : the text of the patent, the invention must be described to an extent that it can be reproduced by an average expert.

For an Italian inventor it is possible to register the first patent application (priority application) both in Italy and abroad. The priority application, that if not extended, will lead to a patent valid only in the country in which it has been registered, is defined like this since the registration date (priority date) may be claimed in subsequent applications registered in other countries. The convention of Paris laid down that the person who has registered for the first time a patent application in a State of the Convention has one year time to register applications in other states and that the effects of these applications concerning the spreading and anticipation of further patents, will have effect from the registration date of the first application (priority). In practice, thanks to this Convention there are 12 months at disposal from the first registration date, to register abroad the corresponding applications.

To date the Italian Patent and Trademark Office do not make a substantial exam of the patent application: such a thing makes the Italian patent application and the subsequent patent "weak".

It is on a serious revision of the regulation aiming at harmonizing the national legislation with the one existing in other countries and with the aim to introduce the priority analysis carried out by the European Patent Office.

The Patent Application
In Italy, to gain a patent, one must first of all register the patent application at the offices of the local Chambers of Commerce. The registration of a patent, may be entrusted to private agencies that treat both the registration and the different stages of the procedure.

To this application will be assigned a serial number (application number) and a date (registration date), so it will be submitted to the Italian Patent and Trademark Office (U.I.B.M) under the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Handicrafts. To the patent application shall be attached by the applicant a full description of the invention including:

• title, whose aim is to indentify the invention in a clear and concise way,
• abstract in no more than 150 words, written for a technical information,
• description, that can be integrated with figures aiming at illustrating the invention itself,
• claims defining its legal importance.

The description should be structured so as to enable any skilled person in the field to realize the invention itself, or the patent will be considered not valid.

Each application for invention or utility model must contain an only "invention" and is subject by law to a period of secrecy and inaccessibility to the public for 18 months. Of these, the first 90 days are reserved for the military authority who has to evaluate the possible public use of it: naturally the patent rights may always be "expropriated by the state in the interests of the military defense of the country and for other reasons of public utility "(art. 60 LBI), against payment of an appropriate compensation to the patentee himself.

So it is not possible to register directly abroad any patent application (except for the European patent) without a permission of UIBM, which will know the opinion of the military authority , who has in any case the right of the preventive exam of any "invention" has been realized in the country.

The patent granting
Once registered, the applications are inspected according to the chronological order of arrival. After the technical and administrative inspection (it is a formal investigation and not of merit inspection, unlike what happens in other nations,) the Office gives

• he granting of the patent,
• or, to interlocutory request which the person concerned must answer within a prefixed period of time: at the end the patent will be granted or refused.

In the case that the patent application is rejected by UIBM, it is possible to appeal to the Board of Appeal within a deadline of 30 days after the receipt of the relative notification.

The Board of Appeal against the decision of the Office is expected and regulated by art. 71 of repeatedly invoked L.B.I.

Body of special jurisdiction, that is appointed by decree of the Ministry of Industry and is composed of 5 members. Against its decision, it is possible to appealed to the Supreme Court on grounds of legitimacy.

The European Patent Thanks to the European Patent Convention (now including 30 + other 5 states with special status), it is possible to register a single application at the European Patent Office, which after a careful and substantial inspection grants an "European" patent which at date has no over-national validity and must be valided in other European countries in which one wants to protect his invention.

After 6 / 8 months from the registration of an European patent application the holder of the patent application will receive a "research report," that is a report of prior documents connecting by the subject matter of the patent application and that may be offensive to novelty and inventive activity, accompanied by a "preliminary view". These documents are useful tools for understanding the "goodness" of the invention in sufficient time to be prepared for the examination of the patent application, during which the patentees will answer to possible oppositions and requests made by the examiner.

The procedure Patent Cooperation Treaty, "or PCT application", constitutes a sort of "reservation" for the different adhering countries (136 to 1/01/07) where can take place - within a period of 30/31 months from the priority date - the real national registration.

As concerns the advantages of the PCT procedure, besides providing a relatively long period of time before committing oneself in cost of patents in different countries, provides itself a research report accompanied by a written opinion of the examiner that represents a preliminary opinion on the patent. One can also ask, after paying a special tax, a "Preliminary Exam". The outcome of this inspection, which has no impact on the subsequent patenting procedures, can still be useful for assessing the validity of a patent and therefore to avoid the costs of nationalization. It is important to remember that according to an internal policy, the University as a rule does not require the preliminary exam.

Note that a patent is published, eg it is "made available to the public" after 18 months from the date of first registration.