
What is the purpose of patents?
Patents exist to reward inventors for disclosing the technical details of their invention to the general public. The reward for doing this is a monopoly, typically lasting 20 years from the date the patent application is filed, which gives the patent owner the exclusive right to exploit the invention.What is patentable?
What the patent claims must be new, and it must be inventive (which means you can’t get a patent for something that is an obvious development of something pre-existing, even if that development is new). Also, it must be described in the patent clearly enough to allow someone skilled in that technical field to do (or make) it. Some subject matter is excluded from patentability, such as business methods, mathematical formulae, and computer programs. Note, though, that you might get a patent for a method that has a technical effect and is implemented using a computer program, which is an interesting sub-topic in itself.Where and how do I apply for patents?
You can get national patents by applying to patent offices in individual countries. For example, the patent office in the UK is the Intellectual Property Office. Alternatively, you can apply to the European Patent Office for a ‘European Patent’, but once granted that effectively becomes a bundle of national patents, each of which must be enforced independently.- “Early 2015” is a “realistic target date” for a unitary patent framework
- Europe comes one step closer
What rights do patents give the owner?
The initial owner will be the applicant, who will typically be the company owned by or employing the inventor/s. Once they have a granted patent, the owner of a patent can work the invention themselves, licence others to use it, sue others to stop them using it, or even sell the patent. If a patent owner chooses to sell it, the purchaser can subsequently do with it whatever the original owner could have done. Indeed, there are some companies whose entire business model revolves around buying other people’s patents and then licensing them to (or enforcing them in the courts against) other people.How can I enforce my patent?
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