https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192844477.001.0001, pg. Lexis, ALB]

Utility models are registered industrial property rights which confer on proprietor’s exclusive protection of their technical inventions, particularly those with a limited degree of inventiveness or a relatively short period of exploitation. They offer more flexible and less burdensome protection than that offered by patents. Utility models are therefore an effective tool well-suited to enterprises—particularly SMEs—which are active in certain fields of innovation.

5.19

The planned system would have had the following features: the field of application would cover products as well as processes but would exclude biological material and chemical or pharmaceutical products and processes, owing to the special features of these sectors. As in the case of patents, inventions which could be protected by utility model would have to be new, involve an inventive activity, and be capable of industrial application.

5.20

However, the level of inventiveness required would be lower than that for patents. Inventions would be considered as involving inventive activity if they represented an advantage and, from the point of view of the skilled person in the relevant technical fields, were not derived in a ‘very obvious’ way from the state of the art. The definition of inventive activity was a key element in the proposed directive, as it enables the utility model to be distinguished from the patent.31