Prior user rights will protect those who had in good faith used the invention or undertaken serious preparations to use the invention in an enterprise or business prior to the filing date of a patent application or its priority date from suit for infringement of a patent granted on that application. The burden of proof is reversed in respect of claims of infringement of process patents if the product of the process is new or there is a substantial likelihood that the product was made by the patented process and the patentee despite using reasonable efforts has been unable to determine the process actually used by the defendant. Patent license agreements do not have to be recorded with the Documentation, Information and Technology Transfer Bureau. They are, however, subject to a number of provisions summarized below. Compulsory licensing is possible under terms that are consistent with the Paris Convention.
Most provisions relating to patents also apply to utility models.
The main differences are that to secure protection as a utility model an innovation need not involve an inventive step as is required for patents but needs to be merely novel and industrially applicable. The maximum term of protection for a utility model is seven years from the date of filing. Many of the provisions relating to patents also apply to industrial designs. The main differences are that novelty for a design is determined only on the basis of printed documents and what is available in tangible form. Designs are initially registered for a period of five years and are renewable for two further five-year periods.