The fifteen years up to 2000 saw the introduction of utility model protection in at least twenty-five jurisdictions which did not have them previously. Since then, however, the pace has slackened. Whether the current economic morass will lead to renewed interest in creating such protection by countries that do not currently have this type of protection remains to be seen. Whereas the early trend seems to have been to have different standards for novelty between patents and utility models, particularly in countries having an absolute novelty standard for patents, the current trend seems to be away from this and towards only requiring a reduced level of inventiveness for utility model protection.

From the applicant’s point of view, however, in many countries utility model protection provides a relatively low-cost means for obtaining protection for some types of invention in a large number of countries.