Applying For A Patent
What is the Patent Office?
The Patent Office is the government agency that grants patents. There is usually one for each country, there's also a European patent office in Munich that grants European patents. The patent office will examine your patent application when you file it at the patent office and will take the decision as to whether they think that they can grant you a patent, because you meet the legal requirements. Very often, the patent office comes up with objections and that where your patent attorney comes in and is able to argue with the patent examiners and hopefully get you a patent even though there may have been some objections there.
When are patents granted?
A patent is granted when the patent examiner decides that your patent application has met the requirements of novelty, inventive step, industrial applicability, and that usually takes a number of years after the patent application has been filed.
How do I file for a patent application?
If you want to file a patent application, you can do it yourself with the patent office. The patent office in the UK provides lots of advice on how to do this. However, if you're serious about getting a patent for an important invention, then it's best to get professional advice from a patent attorney, who will be able to help you with every step of the process.
What happens after my patent application has been filed?
Once your patent application has been filed, the Patent Office will examine it. They will have a look and see if it meets the formal requirements of the patent law. So, whether you filled in the forms properly and the documents all meet those requirements. But they will also do some searching to see if the invention is already known. So they will search in their databases and into their records and provide you with an examination report that will tell you whether they think it's new, whether they think it involves an invented statistic, and whether it's industrially applicable. Also, they will say whether it's excluded from patent protection.
What happens once I have received an examination report?
The patent office will send you the examination report, and it will tell you whether they've got objections to your application. Often, they've found documents out there that disclose something similar or even the same as your invention. You have the opportunity to amend your patent application, but you can only amend your patent application using information that is already in your application. This is another reason why it's important to get your application right the first time, and the best way to do that is with professional advice.
How long does a patent application take?
A patent application can take a number of years to get to grant. It can also be granted relatively quickly, in less than a year depending on the procedure. Most of the time, patent applications take between two and three years to get to grant.
When does patent protection start?
Well once your patent application has been filed, then you can tell other people about your invention, provided that all the features of your invention have been disclosed in your patent application and you continue with the patent application procedure. But you can only sue someone under your granted patent once it's been granted. But you do have some provisional protection from the time that the patent application is published, which is usually 18 months after you first filed for patent protection, and that allows you to claim damages back from someone who is infringing your patent in respect to the time between publication and grant.
How much does a patent cost?
Well patent protection can cost anything from a few thousand pounds up to ten's or hundred's of thousand's of pounds depending on the number of countries that you want to get protection in. For typical patent application, the cost of drafting a patent application might be somewhere between £2,000 and £5,000. Then, the cost of prosecuting that to grant in the UK for example, might only be a few thousand pounds more. This can vary vastly depending on the complexity of the technology, the legal difficulties and also the geographical scope that you for.
Why does it cost so much to get a patent?
Patent laws are extremely complicated, and often times the technology that is being protected is also complicated. So it requires some skill to protect an invention for the next twenty years, and to provide a valuable commercial asset for a company. For that reason, the cost of patent advice can be quite high. But looking at it in the context of a successful invention, it's only a very small investment.
Why would my patent not be granted?
Your patent might not be granted because your invention isn't new and you'd be surprised at how many things have already been thought of and appear in patent searches. It also might not be granted because your invention isn't considered to have an inventive step. In other words, it's considered to be obvious over what's already known. It could be that your patent wouldn't be granted, because your patent specification doesn't describe your invention in enough detail for the invention to be carried out, so you fail on four more requirements. There are any number of reasons why your patent might not be granted. It's important to get good advice so that you don't fall foul of those potential traps.
Will the Patent Office ensure that others do not copy my patented invention?
No. The Patent Office has no responsibility for making sure that other people don't use your technology, even if it's patented. It's your responsibility to identify people infringing your patent and to take appropriate action. Which might be to approach those infringers, it might be to sue them in the courts. But your first step would be to get some good legal advice as to what your options are.
How long does my patent last for?
Patents last for twenty years from filing in most countries, including the UK, as long as you pay annual renewal fees to keep them in force.
Am I able to renew my patent?
You have to renew your patent every year until it reaches the end of its term, which is 20 years from its filing date. Once it expires, your technology is available for anybody to use. That's the whole point of the patent system, to get the technology out there so that other people can use it once you've had a period of exclusivity.
Can I re-apply for a patent?
You can certainly re-apply for a patent if your invention is still secret. However, if you have already applied for the patent, your invention will be published 18 months from the earliest application date of your patent application, and so as part of the patent application procedure your invention becomes publicly available. After that publication, you would not be able to apply for further patent. Within the first eighteen months you could reapply, if for any reason there is something wrong with your patent application.
