Intellectual property

The term “intellectual property” covers a wide variety of legal concepts, whereby, under the conditions set forth by the relevant laws, exclusive rights are granted in relation to certain creations of the mind. The most important categories of intellectual property rights known and protected in Belgium have been highlighted below, namely patents, trademarks, (industrial) designs and copyright.

If you are faced with one of the following issues (and provided certain conditions are met), you may need to seek legal assistance in protecting and enforcing your intellectual property rights:

You conduct business activities in Belgium, throughout the EU and beyond
You want to obtain protection for your key brands or extend protection in Belgium, the EU Member States and beyond
Research and development and innovation are considered your business’s core competences and value-drivers, for which you want to obtain exclusive rights
You want to enforce your rights against a third party who is infringing your (core) intellectual property rights

Key information you will find in this section:

Patents

A patent is an exclusive right granted by a competent government authority for the exploitation of an invention, subject to certain conditions and for a limited period of time.

There are both formal and substantive conditions to be met in order to obtain a patent:

Formal condition: a patent application must be filed with a competent government authority, which, provided all the substantive conditions are met, will grant the patent to the patent applicant (registering it in his/her name).
Substantive conditions: the subject of the patent application has to be an invention, which is new, involves an inventive step and is capable of industrial application

More information on patents

Trademarks

A trademark is a temporary, exclusive right to a sign (which can be a word, drawing, colour, stamp, letters, numerals, surname or shape of a product or its packaging, or a combination of any of these features). The aim of a trademark is to distinguish the trademark-holder’s products and/or services from those of another undertaking.

Trademark protection in Belgium can be obtained in various ways...

More information on trademarks

Designs

This right encompasses a temporary, exclusive right over an ornamental or aesthetic aspect of a product. The aspect must be new and possess individual character (i.e. it must be apparent to the general public that the design is different from already existing products).

As with registered trademarks, there are two ways to obtain protection for a design in Belgium...

More info on designs

Copyrights

Copyright law in Belgium is mainly regulated by the Copyright Act of 30 June 1994, which has been significantly amended since its enactment. The latest amendment dates from 2005, when Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects and related rights in the information society was implemented...

More information on Copyrights

A concise, practical overview of the intellectual property rights that are relevant to your business
Here, we list the intellectual property rights that are most relevant for companies conducting business in Belgium, throughout the EU and globally.
How to protect your intellectual assets (trademarks, patents, copyrights and models)
In some cases, official procedures need to be followed in order to obtain such exclusive intellectual property rights. Furthermore, an overview is provided of where applications for registered trademarks, patents and models can be filed, and the conditions to be met to effectively obtain such protection.
Ways to use your intellectual property rights as a strategic asset and how to enforce them
We describe how you can strategically use your intellectual property rights (for instance by licensing them out or transferring them to third parties); furthermore, it highlights the basic conditions to be met in order to effectively enforce your intellectual property rights against infringement.