In accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Belarus the exclusive right to an invention is protected by the State and is certified by a patent. The scope of legal protection conferred by an invention patent is determined by the claims.
The exclusive right over the exploitation of an invention includes the right to use the invention in one’s own discretion, assuming this does not violate the rights of others, and the right to prohibit others from using the invention.
The owner of a patented invention has the exclusive right to use it during the term of the patent starting from the date on which the particulars of the grant of the patent were published in the Official Bulletin of the National Center of Intellectual Property.
The patent term covering an invention is 20 years from the filing date of the application (in some cases the term of the patent may be extended, but by no more than 5 years).
The application for the grant of a patent for the invention is filed with the patent authority of the Republic of Belarus – the National Center of Intellectual Property that carries out examination of the application and decides whether to grant a patent for the invention or to refuse to grant a patent.
The application for the grant of a patent for the invention must relate to one invention only or to a group of inventions so linked as to form a single general inventive concept (“requirement of unity of invention”).
The examination of an application for invention patent consists of two steps: preliminary and substantive examination. Substantive examination is carried out upon request filed by the applicant or any other interested person. The request for substantive examination must be filed together with the application filling or within 3 years from the application filing date.
In order to be eligible for legal protection, an invention must:
An invention is considered to be novel if it does not form part of the state of the art. The state of the art comprises everything made available to the public anywhere in the world before the priority date of the invention, and also includes, on condition of their earlier priority, all applications for inventions and utility models (except for those withdrawn) filed by other persons in the Republic of Belarus, and inventions and utility models that have been patented in the Republic of Belarus.
An invention is considered to involve an inventive step if, having regard to the state of the art, it is not obvious to a person skilled in the art.
An invention is considered to be industrially applicable if it can be used in industry, agriculture, public health or other fields of activity.
The following are not considered inventions:
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