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Patents |
Patents
What is a patent for? A patent is for protecting the rights to an invention. The patent give its owner the exclusive right to commercially exploit the invention. This includes the right to make, sell, use, import or hire the invention. The invention is described in a document called a patent specification, which forms part of the patent. The patent specification is essentially both a legal and technical document and its content is critical as it determines the scope of protection afforded by the patent. What can be patented? The type of “invention” that can be protected by a patent has become broader over the decades. An invention can be an apparatus, device, method or process for doing something (including a business method ), a system, or something similar. Why get a patent? Most inventions are easy to copy or reverse engineer. If you have developed an invention, and if you do not have a patent, other people are usually free to simply copy the invention. Almost always, an invention is the product of significant input of research and development, ingenuity, imagination, hard work, or financial investment or combinations of these. Someone copying the invention can have all the commercial benefits of the invention, while avoiding the need for such input. Consequently, if you do not protect your invention, your competitors can have a significant commercial advantage over you. It is also possible, and common, to licence the patent rights to others in exchange for a royalty, or to completely sell (assign) the rights in a patent. These steps can contribute significantly to the commercial value that a patent can have to the patent owner. Many businesses have medium to large portfolios of patents, or even one or two patents for key parts of their operations, that can give them significant commercial leverage and advantage over their competitors.
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