António Andrade, Intellectual Property partner, and Sara Nazaré, senior associate of the same practice, write a Legal Update on the first Intellectual Property Code approved in Sao Tome and Principe.
The article can be read here.
Industrial property code approved |
The first Industrial Property Code of Sao Tome and Principe (IPC-STP) has been published in the Diário da República. |
Decree-Law no. 23/2016 took around 15 years to be approved. The first legislation on the matter dates back to 2001 (Law no. 4/2011 concerning industrial property, which was then regulated by Decree no. 6/2004, the Internal Execution Regulation of Law no. 4/2001). An important – yet insufficient – step had already been taken then with regard to the acknowledgement of industrial property as a key driver for economic and trade development of the country, as well as a driver of scientific and technical progress. The updating of the industrial property legal regime was partly due to the growing internationalisation of the economy and the “worldwide standardisation of new concepts and tools concerning activities related with industry, services and trade”. We highlight the following three key amendments:
New types of industrial property rights were established Legal regimes of the rights that already existed were improved
it is now permitted to protect utility models and topographies of semiconductor products; the patents regime was improved and made more transparent (including the granting procedure, effects of the grant and conditions of use)
Administrative procedures were extended Legal judicial means relating to the grant and the revocation of IPR were extended Regime of IPR infringement was extended
Industrial property guarantees were placed under general property protection
|