The utility model patent is a patent title that allows to protect those inventions that present improvements such as to confer a particular utility, or convenience of use or application, to machines or parts thereof, tools and utensils.

Industrial processes, chemical and biotechnology products and electrical/electronic circuits cannot be protected with a utility model.

The utility model must have more or less the same requirements as an invention patent, even if the level of inventive step is lower than that required for an invention patent. 

The utility model is, therefore, particularly suitable for that type of invention which, despite being new and having a certain inventive character, would hardly be accepted by the patent office as real “inventions”.

The applicant of an Italian patent for an industrial invention is allowed to submit a simultaneous application for a utility model to be asserted in the event the first is not accepted or is only partially accepted by the Italian Patent and Trademark Office-UIBM. 

If the application concerns a utility model rather than an invention, or vice versa, UIBM invites the interested party to modify the application itself, which takes effect from the date of the original submission.

Not all countries have the utility model.

In Europe the utility model is foreseen, for example, in: Albania, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Czech Republic, Moldavian Republic, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary.

Other countries where the utility model is recognized are: Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Taiwan.