The legal framework of the protection of inventors in Serbia

Abstract

The author of this paper gives an overview of the evolution of legal framework of protection of rights of inventors in Serbia, since the end of the 19th century to present day. Special attention is paid to the legislative bill of the new patent law, adopted by the Serbian Government in the beginning of July, 2011. This paper was written in the period after the Bill had been adopted, but before the parliamentary debate began. From the new legal institutions envisaged by the Bill the author points out in detail the obligation to issue a research report (report on the state of the art) before the publication of the patent application, evening up the petty patent and patent in respect of the inventive step of the invention as a condition of patentability, differentiation between petty patent and examined petty patent in respect of the right of the applicant to request interim court measures to prohibit unauthorized economic exploitation of the invention, changes in the wording of some sections of the law necessitated by entry in force of the European Patent Convention, introduction of right of appeal of the applicant against the administrative decisions of the Intellectual Property Office, prescribing explicitly the right of review as an extraordinary legal remedy in litigations initiated for the protection of the rights of patent holders, enabling restoration of rights (restitutio in integrum) in the case of failure to pay annual fees for maintenance of patent rights, introduction of the institution of 'continuation of procedure', assignment of the administration of the registry of pledged patent rights, rights from petty patent and rights conferred by the patent application into the competence of Intellectual Property Office, and other novelties necessitates by the requirement of harmonization of domestic legislation with the sections of the TRIPS agreement and the Directive of the EU No. 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights in respect of the measures for the protection of the rights of patent holders.