Italy

The Italian Patent and Trademark Office (UIBM) is the office of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Italian Government dealing with the administrative activity of registration and grant of the right of industrial property. UIBM handles the reception of granting applications for Italian industrial property rights (patents, trademarks, or models), checks the technical and formal regularities of the applications, examines, grants, or rejects the applications, and manages opposition procedures against the release of Italian trademarks. At the international level, UIBM also receives applications for Italian or European patents and International trademarks, though it does not conduct specific examinations for these.