GENERAL INFORMATION
Portugal is a country-member of the Union of Paris Convention (revision of Stockholm), of the European Patent Convention, of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (commonly designated TRIPS).

Patents protect inventions and are granted when the invention is new, possesses inventive character and is susceptible of industrial application. Inventions correspond to the employment of certain technical knowledge or of the technological domain.

In order to obtain a patent it is essential to carry out an exam on the technogical state of the art.

Pharmaceutical products and the processes for obtaining them are susceptible of being the object of a patent.

Supplementary Certificates of Protection are granted for products protected by a patent in the territory of a Member-State and subjected, while medicines, before its placement on the market, to an administrative authorization process.

The processes for cloning human beings, for the modification of the germinal genetic identity of the human being, or the use of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes are not susceptible of patent protection.

Patent applications are published 18 months after the presentation of the application at the Patent and Trademark Office.

A provisional patent application may be filed. This application is suitable for those situations in which the interested one still does not dispose of all the elements (v.g. claims of what it is to be considered new and characterizes the invention or the description of the object of the invention). The provisional application can be subsequently converted into a regular application.

DURATION OF PATENT
Patents are valid for a period of 20 years counting from the date of the application.

UTILITY MODELS
Utility models seek the protection of inventions through a more simplified and accelerated administrative proceeding than that of the patents.

Inventions relating to biological field or with substances or chemical or pharmaceutical processes cannot become utility models.

Utility models can be granted without exam, beneficiating in this case of a provisional granting. The holder of the utility model must apply for the exam if whishing to defend his rights before the judicial authorities.

Utility models are valid for a period of six years, extendible for two additional periods of two years each.