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From the 1st July 2016,  the examination fee for a European application which is withdrawn, refused or deemed withdrawn prior to the start of substantive examination will enjoy a full refund of the examination fee.  The full refund was previously offered only before the examining division had "assumed responsibility", which occurs prior to the start of substantive examination, so this rule change ...

Nowadays, no one doubts that the rights of Intellectual Property (IP) (patents, industrial designs and trademarks) have become indispensable to increase the competitiveness of enterprises instrument, assuming them, in many cases, as a fundamental tool to indicate innovation activities, technological development and intangible assets of public institutions and private companies. Since 2006 the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO), in collaboration ...

The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office calls for grants for application of patents and utility models, with the main objective of promoting the use of Industrial Property by Spanish companies as a tool for access to international markets. The grants called are: - Subsidies to the extension of an application for a patent or a utility model, to the national offices of third ...

Full text can now be searched at Espacenet, an enormous step forward. It went live on 15 March 2016, and it is a powerful new feature that gives patent searchers new ways of improving their search results even more. The full-text search interfaceincludes most of the options available in the advanced search option Espacenet, so it will be familiar to regular users of ...

The demand for European patents grew again  in 2015 reaching a new high of nearly 279 000 (in 2014: 274 000, +1.6%). The figure is an indicator of the growing demand for patent protection from businesses worldwide. The EPO's 2015 annual report, published on 3rd March 2016, also shows that the number of European patent applications (files for which applicants have actually ...

Japan and the United States lead a small group of nations that are driving innovation in 3D printing, nanotechnology and robotics, three frontier technologies that hold the potential to boost future economic growth, a new WIPO report shows. Relying on an original mapping of patents to fields of innovation, the ...

In the first half of 2015, WIPO Re:Search partner BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH) brokered 12 new agreements spanning four diseases and involving 17 members from nine countries. Out of the 89 collaborations established to date, 44 are currently active and four have advanced to the next stage of product development. Four new “User Members” ...

The international transfer of technology and technical know-how promotes economic development in poorer regions, while also helping to open new markets with increased social and political stability that can have global benefits, according to keynote speakers at a recent WIPO forum. McLean Sibanda, CEO of Innovation Hub in Pretoria, South Africa, ...

An agreement allowing European patent applications and patents to be validated with effect for Morocco entered into force on 1 March. This brings to 41 the number of countries for which patent protection can be obtained on the basis of a single European patent application. Morocco is the first country for ...

We are happy to announce that Toolip Valuation has been selected as one of the 20 start-up finalists for the second edition of the program "Adventure for HIPIIES", organized in collaboration between Adventure Network and BBVA Innovation Center. Adventure Network is an international network for accelerating ...