PATENT AS AN INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY RIGHT

One of the oldest and fundamental rights of the industrial property is the patent. The beginnings of its protection are traced as backas to the Middle Ages, to the time when the city authorities tried to attract to their environments competent inventive individuals able to contribute with their inventions to improving the development of commodity production. The subject matter of protection by patent as the right to industrial property is an invention. The invention is a significant factor for the general economic progress. Pursuant to the Law on Industrial Property, patent is defined as the right to industrial property that protects an invention in a procedure specified by law. There are a few types of inventions, invention of a product, invention of a procedure, and invention of matter. Patent is an exclusive right recognised for protection of an invention. Patenting an invention is of great use for a business in terms that it can give exclusive rights to that specific business or company to use the invention up to 20 years from the date of submission of an application for the patent. A procedure for recognition of patent is initiated by the submission of an application for patent to the State Office of the Industrial Property as the competent state authority. Patent gives the owner the exclusive right to make, use, place on the market or sell a patent-protected invention, for a limited period of time which, as a rule, may not exceed 20 years. Protection by patent ensures a favourable position to the patent holder in the market of products and technologies.