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Prior
art search
On a more serious note, although the bar stool story ended well, many cases like this end up in bitter court
disputes costing huge management and financial company resources. It
is essential that before large amounts of money are invested in
tooling up and manufacturing on the basis of potential patent
protection, that a thorough patentability and infringement search is
conducted to ascertain the strength of your IP and to avoid the risk
of infringing a third parties earlier IP rights.
Monopoly rights
A patent is a monopoly right which means that if
someone else independently invents the same patentable invention
after you have obtained patent protection for it, even if they never
saw your product, then your patent should prevent them from
manufacturing, using, importing, selling, offering for sale or
keeping their product for these reasons. This is a very strong right
and affords a serious market advantage for companies that are
developing products and processes.
Patent
granting authorities
A
granted patent affords a monopoly for twenty years therefore the
patent granting authorities rigorously search and examine patent
applications prior to granting these monopoly rights. Each invention
must be described in a written patent specification terminating in a
set of claims which define the extent of protection you are
claiming. The specification must be drafted in a manner sufficiently
clear and complete to allow the public to work the invention after
the monopoly expires. The patent granting authorities publish all
pending patent applications after eighteen months and any third
party may file observations on the patentability of the patent
application. If the applicant pays a search fee, the Patent Office
will conduct a prior art search and the results of this prior art
search are reported to the applicant who can then decide whether it
is worth proceeding based on what the search has turned up. If the
applicant wishes to proceed they must request an Examination of
their application against the prior art uncovered by the search. If
the applicant decides to proceed and pays the examination fee, a
Patent Office Examiner will provide a detailed written report
comparing your technology to that found in the search report. The
Examiner outlines their case and states that your invention is novel
and inventive in the light of the earlier published technology in
which case a patent will be granted. Alternatively, the Examiner
will state that your invention lacks novelty and/or inventive step
in which case you will be given an opportunity to amend the claims
of your patent or present convincing arguments to persuade the
Examiner that a patent should be granted. If the Examiner accepts
the amendments or arguments then a patent will be granted. The
patent expires twenty years from the date of filing of the patent
application providing annual renewal fees are paid on or before the
anniversary of the date of filing. |
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