Intellectual Property
As with most other areas of Maltese law, those laws relating to Intellectual property have been recently revisited and updated with most EU legislation in the field. This applies in the case of Maltese law on Patents (Patents Act - 2000, which adopts most provisions of the EPC (European Patent Convention); Trademarks (Trademarks Act – 2000, which adopts EU council directive 89/104); and Copyright (Copyright Act – 2000, which adopts all relevant EU Directives). Not so with respect to Designs, which are still regulated by the Industrial Property Ordinance 1900. The latter however, as with the other more modern legislative acts mentioned above, does reflect the principles of the TRIPS Agreement.
Malta is a member of WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation), UCC (Universal Copyright Convention), WTO (World Trade Organisation), the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.
Progressively Malta is working to accede to the EPC (European Patent Convention), the PCT (Patent Co-operation Treaty), the Protocol to the Madrid Agreement on the International Registration of Marks, the Hague Agreement on the International Registration of Designs, the WIPO Copyright Treaty, and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
Mifsud & Mifsud Advocates provides services for the registration of patents, designs, and trademarks, and it also provides legal services for the licensing and regulatory protection of such patents, designs, and trademarks, as well as of copyright materials. For further information on Intellectual Property please contact us
