It was published in the Diário da República Decree-Law no. 23/2016, enacting the first Industrial Property Code of Sao Tome and Principe (IPC-STP).
The diploma came immediately into force. It took about fifteen years to be approved as from the first legislation on the matter, which dates back to 2001 (Law no. 4/2011, concerning industrial property, which was then regulated by Decree no. 6/2004, the Internal Execution Regulation of Law no. 4/2001). An important – yet insufficient – step had already been given then towards the acknowledgement of industrial property as a central drive for the economic and trade development but also for the scientific and technical progress of the country.
The “growing internationalization of the economy” and the “worldwide standardization of new concepts and tools concerning activities related with industry, services and trade” supported the updating of the industrial property legal regime of Sao Tome and Principe (STP).
We point the following three main amendments:
new types of industrial property rights (IPR) were established and the legal regimes of the rights that already existed were improved;
the administrative procedures and the legal judicial means relating to the grant and the revocation of industrial property rights were extended, well as its infringement regime;
the industrial property guarantees were placed under general property protection.