About us

The success of your business is built on innovations. Innovations are the basis and the driving force of every economic system.
Granting intellectual property rights to your innovations is the task of the Austrian Patent Office, the central authority for industrial property law in Austria. Successful concepts and technical developments ‘invite’ imitations. Temporary intellectual property rights with a monopoly nature help with this. The Austrian Patent Office effectively provides you with security and, as the national competence centre, safeguards your legitimate interests. Patents, protection certificates and utility models protect your inventions, while registrations protect your trademarks and designs.

Such a concentrated amount of expertise relating to industrial property law cannot be found anywhere else in Austria. In the Patent Office, over 200 experts are responsible for protecting the inventions, designs and trademarks of Austrian businesses. They examine each individual case in compliance with the strictest quality criteria and provide your products with the best possible protection.

As a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) authority, the Austrian Patent Office is one of the best centres for the protection of intellectual property in the world, and has been since 1979. In our role as an International Searching and Examining Authority, we create over 1000 international search reports each year.

Mariana Karepova studied economics and completed advanced training in innovation management at MIT Sloan School. She worked at the Vienna Chamber of Labour and the European Commission before focusing on Research, Technology and Innovation. In the past 20 years she has been a project evaluator and developer of new programs at the Research Promotion Agency and served in the cabinet of Federal Ministers for Innovation and Technology. Since 2015, Karepova has been President of the Austrian Patent Office. She advises national and international organizations. She is deputy Chair of the Industrie 4.0 platform, a member of supervisory bodies, and a juror for funds and prize competitions.