A patent for industrial invention protects a technical solution (an apparatus, a device, a substance or an industrial method or process, or a specific use) able to solve a problem, which fulfills the fundamental requirements of novelty, originality and industrial applicability.
The technical solution is novel if it has not been disclosed, by the inventor or by third parties, worldwide before the filing date of the patent application. The technical solution is original if it does not derive in obvious and banal fashion from the techniques of the prior art, i.e. if it is beyond the person skilled in the art in which it belongs.
It has industrial applicability if it is not an abstract and/or insufficiently described idea, but it allows obtaining a device, an apparatus or a method which can be obtained on industrial basis. Filing an application for a patent for industrial invention before the U.I.B.M. (Ufficio Italiano Brevetti e Marchi, Italian Patent and Trademark Office) entitles the Applicant to the right of exclusive exploitation in Italy (production, marketing, importing) of the invention claimed in the application for a time of 20 years from the filing date, provided that patentability requirements are met.

The U.I.B.M. conducts solely a formal review of the filed application, without carrying out an exam of its merit, i.e. without conducting a priority search and a novelty exam, to evaluate the presence of patentability requirements (novelty, inventive activity and industrial applicability).
Therefore, the patent is to be considered valid until proven otherwise (so-called "presumption of validity"), which an interested third party may do at any time. The content of the patent application for industrial invention remains secret for 18 months from the filing date, whereupon it is made available to the public.

A patent application for Industrial Invention shall comprise: an abstract, in which the invention is briefly introduced, a description, in which the object of the invention has to be described in sufficiently clear fashion, in at least one embodiment, the claims, which shall define the essential characteristics of the invention which are to be defended and protected and on which exclusive exploitation right is to be claimed, and optionally the drawing tables, supporting the description, in which the main embodiment and additional variants are illustrated.
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