to qualify for a patent (patent protection), four criteria must be satisfied. what are they?

Often Asked Questions: Patents

Basics

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention. In other words, a patent is an exclusive correct to a product or a process that generally provides a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a trouble. To go a patent, technical information near the invention must exist disclosed to the public in a patent application.

The patent owner may give permission to, or license, other parties to utilize the invention on mutually agreed terms. The owner may as well sell the right to the invention to someone else, who will and so become the new owner of the patent. Once a patent expires, the protection ends, and an invention enters the public domain; that is, anyone can commercially exploit the invention without infringing the patent.

A patent owner has the right to decide who may – or may not – use the patented invention for the period in which the invention is protected. In other words, patent protection ways that the invention cannot be commercially made, used, distributed, imported, or sold by others without the patent owner'south consent.

Patents may exist granted for inventions in any field of technology, from an everyday kitchen utensil to a nanotechnology chip. An invention can be a production – such as a chemical compound, or a process, for example – or a procedure for producing a specific chemical compound. Many products in fact contain a number of inventions. For instance, a laptop estimator can involve hundreds of inventions, working together.

Patent protection is granted for a limited menses, generally 20 years from the filing engagement of the application.

Patents are territorial rights. In general, the exclusive rights are only applicative in the country or region in which a patent has been filed and granted, in accordance with the law of that country or region.

Patent rights are usually enforced in a courtroom on the initiative of the right owner. In most systems a court of law has the authority to stop patent infringement. However the main responsibleness for monitoring, identifying, and taking action confronting infringers of a patent lies with the patent owner.

Licensing a patent simply means that the patent possessor grants permission to some other individual/system to make, use, sell etc. his/her patented invention. This takes identify according to agreed terms and atmospheric condition (for instance, defining the amount and blazon of payment to be made by the licensee to the licensor), for a defined purpose, in a defined territory, and for an agreed flow of time.

A patent owner may grant a license to a third party for many reasons. The patent owner may not have the necessary manufacturing facilities, for example, and therefore opts to permit others to make and sell his/her patented invention in return for "royalty" payments. Alternatively, a patent owner may have manufacturing facilities, but they may not be large enough to cover market place need. In this case, he/she may be interested in licensing the patent to some other manufacturer in order to benefit from another income stream. Some other possible state of affairs is one in which the patent owner wishes to concentrate on one geographic market; therefore the patent owner may choose to grant a license to another private/organization, with interests in other geographical markets. Entering into a licensing agreement tin help to build a mutually-beneficial business relationship.

Unlike selling or transferring a patent to another party, the licensor proceed to have property rights over the patented invention.

Patented inventions take, in fact, pervaded every aspect of homo life, from electric lighting (patents held by Edison and Swan) and plastic (patents held by Baekeland), to ballpoint pens (patents held by Biro), and microprocessors (patents held by Intel, for instance).

Patents provide incentives to and protection for individuals by offer them recognition for their creativity and the possibility of material reward for their inventions. At the same time, the obligatory publication of patents and patent applications facilitates the mutually-benign spread of new knowledge and accelerates innovation activities by, for example, avoiding the necessity to "re-invent the wheel".

Once knowledge is publicly available, by its nature, it can exist used simultaneously past an unlimited number of persons. While this is, without doubt, perfectly acceptable for public data, it causes a dilemma for the commercialization of technical knowledge. In the absence of protection of such knowledge, "gratis-riders" could easily use technical knowledge embedded in inventions without whatever recognition of the creativity of the inventor or contribution to the investments made by the inventor. As a consequence, inventors would naturally be discouraged to bring new inventions to the market, and tend to keep their commercially valuable inventions secret. A patent organization intends to correct such under-provision of innovative activities by providing innovators with express exclusive rights, thereby giving the innovators the possibility to receive appropriate returns on their innovative activities.

In a wider sense, the public disclosure of the technical knowledge in the patent, and the exclusive right granted by the patent, provide incentives for competitors to search for alternative solutions and to "invent around" the starting time invention. These incentives and the dissemination of knowledge about new inventions encourage further innovation, which assures that the quality of man life and the well-being of society is continuously enhanced.

Applying for patent protection

At that place are numerous weather that must be met in order to obtain a patent and it is not possible to compile an exhaustive, universally applicative list. However, some of the key atmospheric condition include the post-obit:

• The invention must prove an element of novelty; that is, some new characteristic which is not known in the body of existing knowledge in its technical field. This body of existing noesis is called "prior art".
• The invention must involve an "inventive step" or "non-obvious", which means that it could non be obviously deduced by a person having ordinary skill in the relevant technical field.
• The invention must be capable of industrial application, significant that information technology must exist capable of being used for an industrial or concern purpose beyond a mere theoretical miracle, or exist useful.
• Its subject area matter must be accepted as "patentable" nether law. In many countries, scientific theories, aesthetic creations, mathematical methods, plant or beast varieties, discoveries of natural substances, commercial methods, methods for medical treatment (as opposed to medical products) or computer programs are generally not patentable.
• The invention must be disclosed in an application in a fashion sufficiently clear and consummate to enable it to exist replicated by a person with an ordinary level of skill in the relevant technical field.

In general, applicants can prepare their patent applications and file them without assistance from a patent chaser. Notwithstanding, given the complexity of patent documents and the legal skills required, such as claim drafting, information technology is highly appropriate to seek legal help from a patent chaser/agent when drafting a patent application.

Furthermore, the legislation of many countries requires that an applicant, whose ordinary residence or master place of business is exterior the country, be represented past an attorney or agent qualified in the country (which commonly means an agent or attorney who resides and practices in that country). Information on the qualified attorneys and agents tin can exist obtained directly from national and regional IP offices.

The costs vary considerably from land to country (and even within a state). As the official fees vary widely from country to country, please contact the relevant national or regional patent function which will exist able to give y'all details on the fee construction. Consult our list of national and regional intellectual holding offices.

The cost of patenting an invention depends on factors such as the nature of the invention, its complexity, patent attorney'due south fees, the length of the application, and possible objections raised during the examination past the patent office. Some countries offer discounts to pocket-sized- and medium-sized enterprises and applicants filing the application online. In improver, some countries let expedited test upon payment of additional fees.

In addition to the national official filing fees, once a patent is granted past the patent office, y'all must pay maintenance or renewal fees, generally on an annual basis, to maintain the validity of the patent.

In case you make up one's mind to patent your invention abroad, you should also consider the relevant official filing fees for each state in question, the translation costs, and the costs of using local patent agents, which is a requirement in many countries for foreign applicants.

At present, you cannot obtain a universal "earth patent" or "international patent". Patents are territorial rights. In general, an application for a patent must be filed, and the patent granted and enforced, in each land in which you seek patent protection for your invention, in accordance with the constabulary of that country. Therefore, one way of obtaining patents in a number of countries is to file a national patent awarding with each relevant national patent office.

In some regions, a regional patent office, for example, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the African Regional Intellectual Holding Arrangement (ARIPO), accepts regional patent applications, or grants patents. These have the same issue as applications filed, or patents granted, in the member states of that region. This means that, in certain regions, you can obtain a regional patent from a regional patent part, which is valid in some or all of its fellow member states.

If you are seeking patent protection in a number of countries worldwide, a good option is to file an international awarding under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (Pct), administered by WIPO. Any resident or national of a state party to the PCT (contracting state) can file a single international application which has the effect of a national patent application (and certain regional patent applications) in some or all PCT contracting states. In some cases, this can be a more straightforward choice than choosing to attempt to submit private applications in each and every state in which you lot crave protection. Find out more than about the Pct System.

The kickoff footstep in securing a patent is the filing of a patent application. Many patent offices provide a specific class to fill in. In some patent offices, you tin file a patent application on line.

In the patent awarding, in general, you must draw the title of the invention, too as provide an indication of its technical field. You must as well include the background to and a clarification of the invention, in clear linguistic communication and enough detail that a person with an average understanding of the field could use or reproduce the invention. Such descriptions are usually accompanied by visual materials such as drawings, plans, or diagrams to better describe the invention and an abstract, which contains a brief summary of the invention. You lot must also clearly and concisely define the matter for which patent protection is sought in the "claims" role of the patent application.

In addition, depending on the applicable patent law, you may need to submit various kinds of statements, declarations or supporting documents to a patent part. In view of the complexity it is recommended that you consult a patent attorney or a patent agent to prepare a patent application.

The procedures vary significantly from one country to another, so it is impossible to provide an exhaustive pace-by-stride overview. If you wish to research a country's legislation in the field of patents independently, you can scan the WIPO Lex database of intellectual holding (IP) legislation from around the world.

Withal it is recommended that you consult either a practicing lawyer specializing in IP or the relevant IP office. Consult our directory of national and regional IP offices.

The grant of a patent can exist challenged either via a patent office or in a courtroom of police force. A court may invalidate or revoke a patent upon a successful challenge past a third political party. In add-on, many patent offices provide administrative procedures that allow third parties to oppose to the grant of a patent (including then-called "opposition systems"), for example, on the basis that the claimed invention is not new or does not involve an inventive step.

Procedures for challenging patents differ from state to country. Find out more about opposition systems.

In some countries, patent protection may be extended beyond 20 years or a Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) may exist issued in very specific cases. The extension aims to compensate for the time expended on the authoritative approving procedure before products can be put on the market. The fourth dimension taken for this procedure means that the patent owner may sometimes not exist able to do good from his right for a considerable menstruum of time later on the grant of the patent.

Possibly, but laws and practices in this regard can differ from 1 country or region to some other. For example, in some countries, "inventions" inside the meaning of patent law must take a "technical character". In other countries, such requirements practise not exist, pregnant that in these countries software is generally patentable subject field matter.

Withal this does non mean that all software volition be able to be patent protected. In order to obtain a patent, a software invention must not fall nether other non-patentable field of study affair (for example, abstract ideas or mathematical theories) and has to fulfill the other substantive patentability criteria (for example, novelty, inventive pace [non-obviousness] and industrial applicability [usefulness]).

It is therefore recommended that you consult a practicing lawyer specializing in intellectual property or the intellectual belongings offices of those countries in which you lot are interested in obtaining protection. Consult our directory of national and regional intellectual property offices to get in contact with a local IP professional person, or browse the WIPO Lex database of intellectual holding legislation from around the world.

Find out more about using patents to protect software and concern methods.

Should a patent turn out not to exist a viable option for your software-related invention, and then using copyright as a ways of protection may exist an alternative. In general, calculator programs are protected nether copyright every bit literary works. The protection starts with the creation or fixation of the work, such every bit software or a webpage. Moreover, in full general, yous are not required to annals or deposit copies of a work in order to obtain copyright protection.

Still, according to a well-established principle, copyright protection extends only to expressions, not to ideas, procedures, methods of functioning, or mathematical concepts as such. Thus many companies protect the object lawmaking of computer programs by copyright, while the source lawmaking is kept as a trade secret. Find out more virtually copyright.

Whether you tin obtain patent protection for an app depends on which element of your app you wish to protect. If y'all desire to protect a technical idea or characteristic relating to the app, patent protection is a potential option. Depending on the applicative national law, the software that runs your app may be able to be protected by patents if it has certain technical features. Yous must be mindful nevertheless that your technical idea must run across all of the patentability requirements to obtain patent protection, and it may take years to become a patent.

In improver, it is important to inquire yourself which chemical element(southward) of your app should exist protected from free utilise past competitors. The software that runs your app can be protected by copyright (potentially also past patents, as described above). If y'all are interested in protecting logos or signs contained within your app all the same, you should consider protecting them using trademarks. Literary and creative works included within your app, such as original databases, musical works, audiovisual works, works of art and photographs, are protected by copyright. Graphical objects and layouts can be protected using industrial designs.

Find more than about the various types of intellectual property rights.

Please see the questions and answers under the topic "Patent Information ", in particular, the respond to the question "Where can I detect patent information ?".

WIPO Lex provides like shooting fish in a barrel access to intellectual holding legislation from a wide range of countries and regions likewise every bit to treaties on intellectual holding.

Many national or regional patent offices also provide data apropos national or provincialregional law on their websites. Consult our listing of national and regional intellectual property offices.

Confidentiality

No. Patents are granted by patent offices in commutation for a full disclosure of the invention. In general, the details of the invention are and so published and fabricated available to the public at big.

Information technology should be noted that publication can take place at various stages of the procedure. In some countries, the patent certificate is simply published later on the granting of a patent. In other countries, patent applications are generally published 18 months from the filing date or, where priority has been claimed, the priority engagement (for more than details, meet the website of your national IP office).

It is important to file a patent application before publicly disclosing the details of an invention. In general, any invention which is fabricated public before an application is filed would be considered "prior art " (although the definition of the term "prior art" is not uniform at the international level, in many countries, it refers to any data which has been made bachelor to the public anywhere in the earth by written or oral disclosure before the filing date).

In countries which apply the in a higher place definition of the term "prior fine art", an applicant's public disclosure of an invention prior to filing a patent application would forestall him/her from obtaining a valid patent for that invention, since the invention would not comply with the novelty requirement. Some countries, however, allow for a grace menstruation – usually betwixt 6 and 12 months – which provides a safeguard for applicants who disclosed their inventions before filing a patent awarding. Further, the novelty criteria may be interpreted differently depending on the applicative law.

If disclosing your invention before filing a patent application is unavoidable – for example, to a potential investor or a business partner – then whatsoever disclosure should be accompanied by a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement. It should also be kept in heed that applying early for patent protection will generally exist helpful when seeking financial back up to commercialize an invention.

Patents and business

While it is certainly true that not all enterprises develop patentable inventions, it is a incorrect to believe that patents only apply to complex physical or chemical processes and products or that they are only useful to large corporations. Patents tin be obtained for any area of technology from paper clips to computers.

Moreover, when people think of patents, what usually comes to mind are major scientific breakthroughs such equally Edison's kickoff electrical lamp, or large corporations investing in research and development. But, in fact, most patents aren't granted for groundbreaking scientific breakthroughs, but rather for inventions that make improvements to existing inventions. For example the second or 3rd generation of a product or a process, that works in a more cost-effective or efficient way.

Sure countries also accept specific legal provisions for protecting incremental innovations. These are called utility models and they tend to take a shorter duration than patents and are more often than not easier to obtain.

• Exclusive rights: Patents provide you lot with an sectional right to forestall or stop others from commercially exploiting an invention for twenty years from the date of filing of the patent application.
• Return on investments: Having invested a considerable amount of money and time in developing innovative products, through exclusive patent rights, you may be able to establish yourself in the market as the pre-eminent thespian and to obtain higher returns on investments.
• Opportunity to license or sell the invention: If you cull not to exploit the patent yourself, you may sell it or license the commercialization of the patented invention to another enterprise, which could then be a source of income for your company.
• Increase in negotiating power: If your company is in the process of acquiring the rights to use the patents of another enterprise through a licensing contract, your patent portfolio will raise your bargaining power. That is to say, your patents may testify to exist of considerable interest to the enterprise with which you are negotiating, and you could enter into a cross-licensing arrangement where, simply put, your enterprise and the other agree to license respective patents to each other.
• Positive prototype for your enterprise: Business organization partners, investors and shareholders may perceive patent portfolios equally a demonstration of the high level of expertise, specialization, and technological capacity within your company. This may prove useful for raising funds, finding business partners and raising your company's market value.

If y'all don't patent your invention, competitors may well take reward of it. If the production is successful, many other competitor firms will be tempted to make the same production by using your invention without needing to ask for your permission. Larger enterprises may take reward of economies of scale to produce the product more than cheaply and compete at a more favorable market place price. This may considerably reduce your company's market share for that product. Fifty-fifty pocket-size competing enterprises may exist able to produce the same product, and often sell it at a lower price as they would not have to compensate the original research and development costs incurred by your visitor.

But that's not all. The possibilities to license, sell or transfer engineering science volition be severely hindered if you lot don't patent your invention; indeed, without intellectual property (patent) rights, transfers of engineering would be hard if not incommunicable. The transfer of technology assumes that 1 or more parties have legal ownership of a technology and this can only be finer obtained through advisable intellectual belongings (IP) protection. Without IP protection for the applied science in question, all sides tend to be suspicious of disclosing their inventions during technology transfer talks, fearing that the other side may "run away with the invention".

Finally, you have to consider the possibility that someone else may patent your invention outset. The first person or enterprise to file a patent for an invention volition take the right to the patent. This may in fact hateful that, if you practice non patent your inventions or inventions made the employees of your visitor, somebody else – who may have developed the same or an equivalent invention later – may do so. Thus they could legitimately exclude your enterprise from the market, limit your activities to the continuation of prior use (where the patent legislation provides for such an exception), or ask your visitor to pay a licensing fee for using the invention.

Even so, to ensure that no one is able to patent your invention, instead of filing a patent application, yous may disclose the invention to the public then that it becomes prior art for whatever patent application that will be filed after your publication, thereby placing it in the public domain (unremarkably known equally defensive publication). Because of the being of such prior art, later filed patent applications containing the same or similar invention volition be refused by a patent office on the grounds of the lack of novelty or inventive step. At the same time, if you disembalm your invention before filing a patent awarding, you will severely limit your possibility of obtaining patent protection on that invention.

Each situation is unique, so there is no one "correct" way to become near licensing a patent. In some countries, a patent applicant'due south intention to grant a license to third parties can exist published in the official gazette. To find out more, get in touch on with your national IP office.

In full general however, information technology is possible to say that if you intend to license your patent, what is important is diligent preparation. Before starting negotiation with a potential licensee, you should be informed of the current state of affairs and future prospects of the relevant market and technology. Moreover, you should find out about the commercial state of a potential licensee and the associated financial value of your patent, etc. You should reverberate on your own business objectives and carefully consider how entering into a licensing agreement fits into your brusque- and long-term business organization strategies.

In many cases, where an enterprise has merely improved an existing product and the said improvement is non sufficiently inventive to be accounted patentable, utility models may stand for a practiced alternative, if available in the country in question. On occasions, it may exist appropriate for your company to keep its innovations as trade secrets which requires, in particular, that sufficient measures are taken to keep the data confidential.

Another culling strategy could be to ensure that no 1 is able to patent your invention by disclosing information technology (commonly known as defensive publication), thereby assuring its place in the public domain. All the same, you should carefully reflect on using this strategy, since if you disclose your invention before filing a patent application, you will severely limit your possibility to obtain patent protection.

In most countries, if an employee has developed an invention in execution of his/her employment contract – i.e. unremarkably during his/her working time within the enterprise – the invention (and the related patent rights) will vest to the enterprise. To avert defoliation and possible disputes, employers frequently specify issues of intellectual property buying in employment contracts. Depending on the merits of the case, the employee may, withal, accept a right to equitable remuneration in accord with legislative provisions or the employment contract. In whatsoever case, the employee will always retain the right to be mentioned as the inventor, unless he/she expressly renounces this right.

Patent information

Patent data commonly refers to the information establish in patent applications and granted patents. This data may include bibliographic data almost the inventor and patent applicant or patent holder, a description of the claimed invention and related developments in the field of technology, and a listing of claims indicating the scope of patent protection sought past the applicant.

Merely why would patent applicants disclose such extensive information about their inventions? The reason is that the patent system balances the exclusive rights granted to a patent holder over an invention with the obligation to publicly disclose data about the newly developed technology.

The requirement that a patent applicant disclose information nigh their invention(s) is very important for the continuous development of the technology. This information provides a footing on which new technical solutions can exist developed by other inventors. Without publication there would exist no way for the public to get information about new technical developments. Information technology is therefore not surprising that providing data for the public is a central task of industrial property offices.

Patent documents contain technological information that is often not divulged in whatever other class of publication, covering practically every field of technology. They have a relatively standardized format and are classified according to technical fields to make identifying relevant documents fifty-fifty easier (for more information, come across "General Information on the International Patent Classification System "). All in all, they are a vast store of easily accessible human knowledge.

The information independent in patent documents can be very useful to researchers, entrepreneurs, and many others, helping them:

• avoid duplication of enquiry and development work;
• build on and improve existing products or processes;
• assess the state-of-the-art in a specific technological field, e.g. to become an thought of the latest developments in this field;
• evaluate the patentability of inventions, in detail the novelty and inventiveness of inventions (important criteria for determining their patentability), with a view to applying for patent protection domestically or abroad;
• identify inventions protected by patents, in particular to avoid infringement and seek opportunities for licensing;
• monitor activities of potential partners and competitors both within the country and abroad; and
• identify market niches or discover new trends in applied science or product development at an early on stage.

Patent documents are published by national and regional patent offices, usually eighteen months after the date on which a patent application was get-go filed or one time a patent has been granted for the invention claimed past the patent applicant. Some patent offices publish patent documents through gratuitous-of-charge online databases, making it easier than ever to access patent information.

WIPO'southward PATENTSCOPE database provides complimentary-of-charge online access to millions of international patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (Percent) System as well as patent documents filed at national and regional patent offices such equally the European Patent Office and the U.s.a. Patent and Trademark Office.

Though accessibility of patent information has grown as more than and more than patent offices brand their patent documents available through online databases, certain skills are nevertheless required in gild to make effective use of this information, including carrying out targeted patent searches and providing meaningful analysis of patent search results. As a result, it may be advisable to contact a patent data professional for assistance where business-critical decisions are at stake.

WIPO Patent Data Services (WPIS) provide free-of-accuse patent search services for individuals and institutions in developing countries.

WIPO also supports the institution and development of Technology and Innovation Support Centers (TISCs), which provide patent data and related services in many countries around the earth.

WIPO has issued a series of gratuitous-of-charge publications related to the subject, including Finding Engineering science Using Patents and the WIPO Guide to Using Patent Information .

WIPO and patents

WIPO works to develop a balanced and constructive international intellectual property (IP) system, a cardinal part of which is dedicated to patents. WIPO's fellow member states collaborate in various areas, including on agreeing the treaties and conventions that underpin the international IP system and that make the global exchange of creativity and innovation possible. The IP services that WIPO offers, such every bit the facilitation of international patent protection under the PCT Organization, complement services bachelor at the national and/or regional level. It'south important to retrieve that WIPO does not actually grant patents per se; the grant or refusal of a patent all the same rests with the relevant national or regional patent function.

More questions?

If yous couldn't find an answer to your question on this page or through the Patents homepage, then experience gratuitous to contact us.

Disclaimer: The questions and answers provided on this folio serve a purely informative purpose and are not a legal point of reference. They do not necessarily represent the official position of WIPO or its fellow member states.

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Source: https://www.wipo.int/patents/en/faq_patents.html

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