The past fifteen years have seen the introduction of utility model protection in at least twenty-five jurisdictions which did not have them previously. 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. This, certainly is the current proposal in the EU. However, with renewed discussions on the desirability of a grace period in Europe and the provision of a grace period in the design legislation, maybe we will see a grace period in the Utility Model proposal before it is finally enacted.