HISTORY OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The beginnings of the SPTO can be traced back to the Junta General de Comercio y Moneda (General Trade and Currency Board), founded in 1679 in order to promote the economic growth of the country, as one of its functions was to examine inventions and propose to the king the awarding of Letters Patent.

Some of the documents produced by the Board are now on display at the Archivo General de Simancas (Simancas General Archive) . Models and plans of all kinds of machines were filed or put on display at the Real Gabinete along with Letters Patent documents.
On the 18th of August 1824, King Fernando VII authorised the creation of the Real Conservatorio de Artes y Oficios (Royal Conservatory of Arts and Trades). He then ordered that the technological information held at the Real Gabinete be stored in its archives. As a result, the new institution became the definitive industrial property records office as well as a specialist school. The Royal Decree on industrial patents, dated the 27th of March 1826, names the Royal Conservatory as the place where all documentation relating to patents - referred to as privilegios de invención (letters patent) at the time - was to be filed, held, processed and published and where all patent-related matters were to be handled.

In the years that followed the Royal Conservatory evolved through a variety of institutions - Real Instituto Industrial (The Royal Industrial Institute); Dirección Especial de Patentes (The Special Patents Office), Marcas e Industria (Trade Marks and Industry); Registro de la Propiedad Industrial (Industrial Property Office) - before becoming the present-day SPTO. However, it still carries out more or less the same functions as it did before although, naturally enough, technical issues and administrative matters have become gradually more complex in time.

The fact that all the documentation relating to the registering of inventions and distinctive signs has been kept in good condition through the years patently - never a truer word spoken - demonstrates the efficiency of these bodies.

A total of over four million files are held at the SPTO covering every single category of industrial property (concessions, patents, utility models, industrial models, industrial drawings, national and international trade marks, trade names, service marks, etc.).


Source OEPM