Intellectual property - Belgium

Updated 10/2012

Legal requirements

In Belgium, intellectual property protection takes various forms: copyright and related rights, patents, trademarks, designs or models and plant breeders' rights. Through these protections, titleholders are granted the exclusive right, within a given time period and a specific geographic area, to exploit their intellectual property.

Definition of intellectual property

Intellectual property rights

Industrial property rights

Patents provide protection in the form of a legal right to property which allows titleholders to prohibit third parties from manufacturing, using or marketing their invention without their authorisation for a specific period of time within a specific geographic area. In order to be patentable, an invention must:

be new;
involve an inventive step;
have an industrial application.
Law of 28 March 1984 on patents for inventions

The period of protection is generally 20 years but in some cases may be longer.

Period of validity, forfeiture and expiration of a patent
Patents

Trademarks are primarily useful in distinguishing the origin of products or services and providing assurance to users of their identity. To obtain the exclusive right to use a trademark, it must be registered. Trademarks must be distinctive, lawful and available.

Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property, 25 February 2005

The term of protection throughout the Benelux region is ten years.

Trademarks

The protection of designs and Models applies to all or a part of a product's visual appearance as characterised by its:

lines;
contours;
colours;
shape;
texture; or
materials.

Designs are two-dimensional forms and models are three-dimensional. In order to be protected, they must be novel and distinctive. In order to be protected, they must be novel and distinctive.

The period of protection is 5 years and may be renewed four times.

Designs and Models

Plant breeders' rights grant titleholders the exclusive, temporary right to exploit the propagating material of a plant variety in a specified areas. To be protected, the plant variety must be:

new;
distinctive;
sufficiently uniform;
stable.
Law on the Protection of New Plant Varieties, 20 March 1975

The period of protection is 25 years for trees and vines and 20 years for other plant species.

Period of validity, forfeiture and invalidity
Plant varieties

Copyright

Copyright and related rights are granted to:

authors of literary and artistic works;
artists and performers;
producers of sound recordings or the first transcriptions of a film;
broadcasting organisations;
database developers.

A work must be original and fixed in a material form that can be communicated to the public.

Law on copyrights and related rights

The term of copyright protection is 70 years after the death of the author.

Copyrights

Intellectual property protection

The Belgian Office for Intellectual Property (OPRI) is the official body for the registration of trademarks, designs and models within the Benelux area.

Belgian Office for Intellectual Property

Fighting against counterfeiting and piracy

Intellectual property right enforcement is generally centralised in specific courts (usually the commercial courts established at the seat of a court of appeal).

Fight against counterfeiting, piracy and other intellectual property crimes.

Property rights encourage investment in innovation and research.

Administrative procedures

Registration

Patents

Patent applications are filed with the Office for intellectual property (OPRI) and shall be accompanied by payment of the application fee.

Applying for a Belgian patent
Patent application fee
Office for intellectual property
Patent application forms

Trademarks

The registration of trademarks and processing of fees is handled by the Benelux Office for intellectual property (OBPI).

Applying for a Benelux trademark
Trademark application fee
Benelux Office for intellectual property
Trademark application forms

Model or Design

Designs and models are registered with the Benelux Office for intellectual property (OBPI).

Application for a Benelux design or model
Design and model registration fee
Design and model registration forms

Certificate of plant breeder's rights

Applications for plant breeder's rights are filed with the OPRI. Upon receipt of the complete file (application forms and filing fee), a filing date and official number are assigned.

Applying for a certificate of plant breeder's rights
Application form for certificate of plant breeder's rights

Copyrights

Copyrights arise automatically on the creation of an original work. Therefore, administrative formalities are not required to acquire these rights. It may be useful, however, to register a work in order to prove its existence on a specific date. A date can be established in one of the following ways:

application to the registry of the Federal Public Service Finance;
engaging a notary to draw up a duly authenticated document establishing the existence of the work;
using an i-DEPOT envelope to file with the BOIP.
Federal Public Service Finance
Submitting an i-DEPOT

Check also the legislation on this topic in:

Intellectual property - Belgium