Obi Profile

The Hellenic Industrial Property Organisation (OBI) was founded under the Law 1733/87 and began functioning on January 1st, 1988. It is an economically independent legal entity governed by private law and directed by a self-reliant administration and a seven-member Administrative Council.

The Hellenic Industrial Property Organisation (OBI) has exclusive competence in Greece for the registration of inventions and industrial designs and models as well as for matters relating to technological information and technology transfer.

In this context:

It registers inventions in Greece by granting Patents, Utility model certificates (UMC)and other protection titles.
It registers the topographies of integrated circuits.
It protects industrial designs and models.
It operates as a receiving office for applications for the European Patent, the PCT certificate, the International registration of industrial designs and the Community designs and models.
It has developed a technological information service for technical and other data regarding patents in Europe, the USA and Japan via electronic systems and from the OBI archives containing information on national patents and UMCs and also microfilms.
It operates two regional electronic patent libraries in Heraklion - Crete and in Thessaloniki with the aim of providing its technological information services throughout Greece
It registers Technology Transfer Contracts in a special register.
It provides advice and information on the legal system applicable to its field of competence and informs the public about registering inventions and the correct policy for protecting them.
It publishes printed material related to the fields of its competence
It has a non-lending technical and legal library for the public.
It participates in exhibitions and organises events to inform the public at large about its work.
It is active internationally by cooperating with similar organisations abroad and at international level and representing Greece in these organisations and by preparing and inspecting the implementation of international treaties on matters of protection of inventions, technology transfer and industrial designs and models.

In the framework of its competence, the OBI aims at stimulating much further the innovation and its contribution to the modernization and reinforcement of the industrial property protection system. More precisely, through the realisation of various programmes, it aspires to the increase of the number of inventors, enterprises and other legal entities (e.g. universities, research centres) employing the industrial property system, and gives all its energies to the development of new products and services and the continual adaptation of the same system to the changing needs of the Greek users.

The potential access to huge non-commercial patent data bases, the devoted personnel singularly specialized on related matters and, particularly, the know-how acquired through a 20-year experience on the domain of the industrial property protection constitute the guarantee of a reliable sector expert in questions concerning the technological information and the protection of patents and industrial designs.