Patent rights consist in the power to exclusively implement any invention or model and make it profitable or to exclusively use a brand and apply to the court against those who try to contend or encroach on this right.

Anything entailing a creative activity and allowing industrial implementation can be patented. The main patent categories are the following:

• Industrial inventions
• Industrial models (utility models and ornamental models and designs)
• New vegetable varieties
• Trademarks
• Collective trademarks

Patent applications must be filed with the Italian Patent and Trademark Office and  the Chambers of Commerce. The Chamber Office task consists in drawing up the minutes on a suitable register, signed by the applicant and undersigned by the Chamber officer in his quality as a party to a notary’s deed.
Said minutes must contain, among other things, the application date, the name and domicile of the applicant and of his/her agent, the title of the industrial invention or industrial model or the enterprise trademark, and the documents produced. A copy of the minutes, together with the application and documents, are sent to the Italian patent and trademark office for additional formalities and registration, whereas another copy is issued, upon request, to the applicant. After examining the patent application and minutes drawn up by the Chamber of Commerce, the Italian patent and trademark office issues a patent certificate.

As a protection to the owner, the patent transcription in the Patent Register is made in order to guarantee the title of the right itself, since any change in the title must be registered. In fact, in the event of a patent ownership transfer, or should any ownership change occur, the assignee must either personally or through an agent, file the transcription note to the Chamber of Commerce or to the Italian patent and trademark office; it shall be drawn up in duplicate, on stamped paper and signed by the assignee or his/her agent.

Said note must contain the names, nationality and domicile of the assignor and assignee, the date, nature of the title that is intended to be transcribed and, for public deeds, the name of the notary that received it; it shall also indicate the reference number of the registration of the title at the Registry and the statement of rights, including the number and date of the patent, trademark or model. If the deed to be transcribed relates to several patents, trademarks or models, the same number of samples in unstamped paper must be presented for each patent, trademark or model besides the first one. For transcriptions by succession, the owner’s death certificate and the certificate of succession notification must be produced.
Should the rights concerning patents, models and trademarks be simultaneously transferred with one title, separate transcriptions must be requested by producing copies in unstamped paper of the sole title, together with all the above-mentioned documents,

The documents drawn up in other languages must be complemented by the Italian translation, certified and authenticated before the relevant Italian authorities.