In 2013, the government drafted amendments with the aim of further harmonizing the Copyright Act with European Union laws and the WIPO copyright treaties.

Trademark

Under the current Trademark Law, any mark that is used to distinguish goods and/ or services in trade and that may be graphically presented may be protected as a trademark. A mark may be comprised of words, slogans, letters, numbers, images, drawings, combinations of colors, three-dimensional shapes, graphically presentable musical notes, and other contents. A trademark applicant does not have to state a bona fide intent to use the mark in commerce.

The administrative organization in charge of examining applications for trademark protection is the Intellectual Property Office. Under the law, the decisions of the Office may be appealed before the Serbian Government. The Office maintains an online database of trademark applications and registered trademarks, which is available on the website of the Office.

Foreigners have the same rights as domestic citizens to apply for registration, subject to international treaties or reciprocity between the relevant country and Serbia.

A person who has filed an orderly trademark application effective in a member state of the Paris Union or the World Trade Organization is granted a right of priority in Serbia, provided that an application for the mark is filed in Serbia within 6 months from the effective date of the application in the country concerned.

After the registration of a mark, trademark protection lasts 10 years. The registration may be renewed an indefinite number of times with a payment of a fee. The registration vests the proprietor with an exclusive right to use the mark for the goods or services belonging to the designated class. Well-known marks, within the meaning of Article 6bis of the Paris Convention, do not have to be registered in order to enjoy protection from trademark infringement in Serbia. Registered famous marks are protected against dilution by blurring or tarnishment.

Patent

The current Patent Law entered into force on January 4, 2012. It introduces, as a general rule, the right of the applicant to lodge an appeal from the decision of the Intellectual Property Office.

The law protects two types of IPRs to protect inventions: patents and utility models, To qualify for protection, both types of patents must be new and susceptible of industrial application, and both must involve an inventive step. The current law does not set a lower threshold for inventive step for a petty patent than for a patent. The two types of patents, however, have different subject matters. Invention protected by a patent may be a product, a process, use of a product, or use of a process, whereas the subject matter of invention protected by a petty patent may only be a solution relating to the structure of a product or the layout of its components. The patent term is 20 years from the date of filing a complete application. For a petty patent, the term is 10 years. Prior to registration of a petty patent, the Intellectual Property Office does not examine ex officio the applications as to substance.

Serbia uses a first-to-file-as opposed to first-to-invent-system of acquisition of patent rights. A single application may refer to only one invention, unless a number of inventions are mutually so linked as to form a single general inventive concept. The single inventive concept exception does not apply to petty patents. The law does not provide for opposition proceedings. On the other hand, the Intellectual Property Office may take into account written observations by any third party, concerning the patentability of the invention to which the application relates.

Assignment and licensing of a patent must be in writing. In order to have legal effect vis-à-vis third parties, assignment and license must be registered.

Industrial Design

Under the Law on Legal Protection of Industrial Design (2009), registered industrial design protects visual three-dimensional or two-dimensional appearance of the product (shape, texture, materials, colors, contours, lines of the product or its ornamentation, as well as combination of those features). "Product" is defined broadly, to include any industrial or handmade items. The products that are components of other, more complex products are also encompassed by the definition and may be subject to a separate registration.

Novelty and individual character are the two preconditions for registration of a design.

The Intellectual Property Office examines ex officio whether the conditions for registration of a design have been fulfilled. A registered design enjoys protection for a period of 25 years from the date of application.

This consolidated version of the Law on Legal Protection of Industrial Design incorporates the amendments made by Law on Amendments of the Law on the Legal Protection of Industrial Design (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia No. 45/15), which entered into force on May 22, 2015.

Copyright

The copyright law in Serbia protects any original intellectual creation in the literary, scientific, and artistic domain, expressed in a certain form, regardless of its artistic, scientific or some other value, its purpose, size, contents and way of manifestation.

Intellectual creations that consist only of ideas, procedures, methods of operation, or mathematical concepts are not copyrightable. For copyright to attach, neither registration nor placement of the copyright notice on the work is required.

Copyright includes two distinct types of rights: moral and economic rights. Moral rights include the right of first disclosure, right of attribution, and the right to the integrity of the work. Economic rights comprise reproduction right, distribution right, the right to communicate the work to the public, the right to prepare a derivative work, and resale right. The term of protection for economic rights is 70 years after the death of the author. Moral rights survive the termination of economic rights.

Copyright may be licensed or assigned by a copyright contract. The moral rights of an author, however, are not transferable by a contract.

Provided by BDK Advokati/Attorneys at Law