Patents

When someone is granted a patent they have the exclusive right to manufacture and sell the items which is the subject matter of that patent. This monopoly means that patents are very valuable but it also means that patents are not granted lightly and that, the more valuable they are commercially, the more likely they are to be the subject of challenge by third parties wanting to break the monopoly. A patent is granted to protect an article that is better in some way than what was made before - it must involve an inventive step. In an extreme case, a patent can be wide enough and represent a big enough advance over earlier ideas, to give its owner a complete monopoly of an industry. For instance, there have been patents giving, for a time, a monopoly of telephones, or of pneumatic tyres, or of hoovers without hoover bags. The existence of the patent makes it necessary for a competitor to do design work or even major research of his own rather than copy the actual product he wishes to imitate.

The scope of the patent is of paramount importance. If the patent protection sought is too wide, then it will be open to challenge by competitors; if too narrow, it will not give the patent owner the protection he needs. In intermediate cases it may be very hard to get proper protection: where goods are markably more successful than what was made before but without being very strikingly different, it is doubtful whether any patent can prevent imitation.

It is sensible to seek advice from a suitably qualified and experienced patent agent at an early stage to check whether, patent protection is thought to be available, the scope of the protection which should be sought, and the costs and timescales for obtaining that protection.

In some circumstances inventors feel that it is more important to try to get their product to the market place in advance of their competitors rather than try to use the patent system to stifle competition. All of these are questions with which an experienced patent agent can assist.

A patent lasts - so long as renewal fees are paid - for 20 years from the date when the full specification of the invention is filed at the patent office. Patent protection, however, does not become fully effective until the specification is published by the patent office. This will take up to 18 months from the date when the patent is applied for.

Patent protection is not world wide or universal. Each jurisdiction in which protection is sought requires a separate application, although EC wide applications are possible. Accordingly, one of the first things an application has to decide is in what territories protection is sought, and this will usually be determined by where his customers are likely to be based.

Registering patent applications is an expensive business, and for an individual the costs may be prohibitive. In some cases grant assistance may be available to assist with patent protection. Where a product has an identifiable commercial application it may be possible to persuade a funder to assist with the commercialisation process in exchange for part ownership of the intellectual property or some royalty based return on future sales.