WIPR Annual 2019 Business Brief: Greece

Patents

Exempt from protection are discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods, aesthetic creations, schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers, presentation of information, methods for treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy, and diagnostic methods practiced on the human or animal body.

Inventions are protected by a national or a validated European patent, with a 20-year duration and subject to payment of annual fees. Inventions concerning three dimensional objects which are proposed as novel and industrially applicable and are capable of providing a solution to a technical problem may be protected by means of a utility model, which has a maximum duration of seven years and is renewed annually. Where the applicant is a Greek national, Patent Cooperation Treaty and European patent applications must be filed through the Greek Patent Office.