What requirements must my invention meet to be protected with a patent?

Your invention should meet three requirements:

• Novelty: Your invention must be new. This means it must not be made publicly known anywhere in the world before the patent application is filed, not even by yourself.
• Inventive step: Your invention must not be obvious to a skilled person in the same field.
• Industrial applicability: Your invention must consist of a technically feasible product or process.

In some countries you cannot obtain a patent unless all three requirements are met. In other countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands, the granting of a patent is a purely administrative procedure. This means that in these two countries you can get a patent granted even for inventions that are not new or inventive.