Practice Areas

Legal protection to register, defend, and add value to your creations.

This is a practice area structured within Archer & Associados, covering all fields of intellectual property protection. A mere thought or idea cannot be considered intellectual property, but the law protects human innovations and creations, both at an artistic and at a commercial and industrial level. Trademarks identify the origin of products to consumers. Designs define the appearance of products. Copyright relates to artistic creations such as books, music, paintings, sculptures and films. Patents protect technical inventions across all fields of technology.

The European Union Intellectual Property Office has developed a highly interesting diagram, known as the "Intellectual Property Metro Map", which illustrates the protection mechanisms of Intellectual Property Law, designed to reward innovators and enable anyone to benefit from their achievements.

Archer & Associados lawyers in this area, coordinated by the Head of the Consortium, who holds dual higher education qualifications in law and chemical engineering, provide registration services for trademarks (word marks, figurative marks, three-dimensional marks, sound marks, motion marks, multimedia marks or hologram marks), utility designs or models, and invention patents - at national level with the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), at European level with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), and at global level with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). We also draft oppositions and responses in trademark and patent registration proceedings, and represent clients in litigation relating to industrial property and copyright.

In the field of copyright, Archer & Associados provides its clients with legal advice and judicial representation in litigation before Portuguese and European courts on matters regulated in Portugal by the Code of Copyright and Related Rights, and in the European Union by a set of eleven directives and two regulations, which harmonise the essential rights of authors, performers, producers and broadcasters - ensuring the level of protection necessary to foster creativity and investment in creativity, promote cultural diversity, and ensure better access for consumers and businesses to content and services throughout Europe.