In Slovak Republic, according to the Act No. 575/2001 Coll. government organizations and central state administration bodies, the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic is the central state administration body in the field of industrial property protection, i.e. patents, utility models, designs, topographies of semiconductor products, trademarks, and designations of origin/geographical indications.

The Office further maintains the patent and trademark documentation and makes it available to the public, and acts as a special patent information center in Slovakia.

In the field of international relations, the Office carries out international treaties concerning industrial property protection which the Slovak Republic is bounded with.

Slovakia is a member of the European Patent Convention (EPC) from July 1, 2002 and a member of the European Union from May 1, 2004, a member of The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants from June 21, 2009.

Patent

Protection of inventions by patent is regulated by the Act No. 435/2001 Coll. on Patents, Supplementary Protection Certificates and on Amendment of Some Acts in wording of the Act No. 402/2002 Coll. Patents shall be granted for inventions which are new, involving an inventive activity and are applicable to industrial application after performing preliminary and substantive examination. The full examination shall be carried out upon the request of an applicant, which shall be filed within 36 months from the filing date of the patent application. It is also possible to patent chemical products and medicaments.

The term of the validity of a patent is 20 years as from the filing date of the patent application. The prerequisite of the duration of the patent protection is the payment of maintenance fees.

Utility Models (Petty Patents) Rights and obligations from utility models protection are stipulated by the Act No. 517/2007 Coll. on Utility Models and on Amendment of Some Acts.

Technical solution shall be protected as a utility model, if it is new, a result of an inventive activity and industrially applicable. According to the current Act, some methods of products manufacturing are allowable.

The Act gives a possibility to a utility model applicant to apply for priority right from an earlier patent application or European patent application.

Term of protection of utility model shall be 4 years from filing a utility model application and may be extended two times, each for 3 years, on request of utility model owner.

Design

Applications of designs must meet, according to Act No. 444/2002 Coll. on designs, formal and substantive requirements. Among the basic requirements for the registration of design into the Register and certification are the novelty and specific character of design. The design shall mean the appearance of a whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colors, shape, texture or materials of a product itself or its ornamentation.

The validity term of the registered design is five years from the date of filing the application of design. This period may be renewed by the owner of the registered design repeatedly for up to 4 periods of 5 years, up to a total term of 25 years from the date of filing the application.

Trademark

The Act No 506/2009 Coll. on Trademarks defines the conditions for the so-called registrability of a trade mark.

A trade mark is verbal, figurative, three-dimensional or combined sign which is capable of distinguishing goods and services on the market. The law specifies in detail the exclusions from registration as well as the signs that cannot serve as a trademark. For example, signs which are devoid of any distinctive character, indications containing official names of states, signs that designate the kind of goods or services, well-known geographical indications, deceptive denominations, signs identical with a trademark already registered by another person for identical goods or services.

Any natural person or legal entity may file the application for the registration of a trademark.

The term of protection of the registered trademark is 10 years from the filing date of the trademark application. Upon the request of the trademark owner and subject to payment of administrative fee, the Office shall renew the term of protection for another 10 years.

Supplementary Protection

Certificates Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic grants supplementary protection certificates for medicinal products and plant protection products pursuant to the Regulation (EC) No. 469/2009 of European Parliament and of the Council of May 6, 2009 concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products and Regulation (EC) No. 1610/96 of European Parliament and of the Council of July 23, 1996 concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for plant protection products.

A supplementary protection certificate protects medicinal products and plant protection products. A supplementary protection certificate may be granted only to an owner of a basic patent or to his legal successor in title.

This period may be exceeded, when prescribed conditions are met, for another 6 months in case of medicinal products on which studies pursuant to experimental pediatric plan authorized by European Medicines Agency (EMA) have been performed.