Sharp extensions of some classical polynomial inequalities of Bernstein are established for rational function spaces on the unit circle, on K = r (mod 2 π), on [-1, 1 ] and on ℝ. The key result is the establishment of the inequality
for every rational function f=pn/qn, where pn is a polynomial of degree at most n with complex coefficients and
with | aj | ≠ 1 for each j and for every zo∈ δ D, where δ D,= {z∈ ℂ: |z| = l}. The above inequality is sharp at every z0∈δD.