Patents
Patents are the form of intellectual property that protects inventions, ie technically innovative features of new products or processes. The patent system in each country is administered by that country's Patent Office, which applies the relevant law (in the UK, the Patents Act 1977) to the applications that it receives and decides whether those applications should be granted.
You should consider patenting your invention if you feel that the technical innovation you have made is something that your competitors would wish to copy if they were able to. However, not everything is patentable. For instance, a patent will only be granted if the Patent Office is satisfied that the invention described in the application meets the following two critical criteria:
- the invention must be defined in terms that are novel, which means that the definition must be different to everything that was already in the public domain when the application was lodged;
- the invention must be considered to be inventive, which means that it must be more than simply a trivial or insignificant, or obvious, development of something that was already known.
Important aspects of our role are:
- advising a client as to whether a particular invention is likely to meet these requirements, including sometimes carrying out searches to try to establish the ways in which the invention differs from what has been done before;
- drafting the application in a way that offers the broadest protection, yet has a reasonable prospect of being allowed;
- steering the application through all the stages of the procedure (which can be lengthy and protracted).
After a patent has been granted, we assist with the maintenance of the patent and advise on its enforcement in the event that the patent is infringed by a competitor.
In addition to obtaining patents for our clients, we also advise them on how to avoid problems with infringement of their competitors' patents, so ensuring their freedom to commercialise their products.
In everything we do, we endeavour to advise in a way that is commercially relevant, comprehensible and clear.
For more information about UK and overseas patent procedures and costs, follow these links:
Basic guide - UK Patents
Basic guide - International Patents
You may also find some of the links to external websites on our Useful Links page helpful.