The Patent Process: How to Get a Patent for Your Invention
The patent process can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. You’ve invented something amazing and you want to protect it. But how do you do that? If you’re an inventor, this can be a confusing topic. And if you’re not an inventor, this might seem like a challenging task to take on. We’ve got some great information on how to get that patent for your invention. Some of the key takeaways are listed below.
- How to get a patent for your invention
If you’ve invented something, you may be interested in protecting your idea with a patent. There are two basic routes to securing a patent. The first is to do it yourself, and the second is to pay an attorney to do it for you. In order to follow an independent patent strategy, you can either hire an attorney to do it for you, or you can pay the attorney to act as your representative.
Independent Patent Strategy (Hire an Attorneys)
If you yourself are the innovator, or the primary contributor to the invention, many experts and experts list these types of fees as the most ideal strategy for most inventors. These fees are usually $10,000 to $20,000, and they tend to go up over time.
There isn’t a lot of information out there about independent patent strategies, so I had to have some specific questions, so I did some Googling. In came Swire Law Offices, a company that not only has experience with and is familiar with all aspects of patents but also specializes in equipment and tool grants. I spoke with the attorney who comes with the equipment and tool grants. He has a list of companies he has trained companies on how to use their equipment and tools and gets paid to train those companies. He also lists the companies he has trained on how to use their equipment and whether or not they have been granted a patent.
What he really helped me with is developing a strategy of where to get my equipment and tool grants. For example, if I were an independent contractor, I probably wouldn’t get a patent unless I really had something that no other company was doing, especially if I only had free time during the week. So I had to find where the biggest players in my space work.
To figure out where they work, I simply had to look for “government contracts.” These provide a billion dollars or more a year for research and development. Great, I thought.
2. What is a patent?
A patent is an exclusive right granted by a country to make, use or sell an invention. A patent holder has the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the patented invention for a limited period of time, generally 20 years. A patent is the grant of a property right.
There are three basic ways to get a patent. If you start with a patent application, those are called “non-provisional.” Provisional is when you use the traditional U.K. patent application process, which includes filing an application for a non-economic (non-technical) invention with the U.K Patent Office.
Our friend Diogenes liked to say there are three types of fish. The first type is the dumb fish, the second type is the clever fish and the third type is the duncefish.
Non-Economic (Non-Technical) Inventions
Non-economic (non-technical) inventions are those using force, such as breaking a vehicle windshield to make the smartphone camera or creating the radio that works with earbuds.
Non-Economic (Non-Technical) Inventions Can be Prior Art
You might be wondering, “Why wouldn’t a competitor create a new invention first? I spring a new idea every year, and I can do anything I want.” The U.K. patent system recognizes prior art. The prior art must be more than five years old at the time of filing your application.
Prior Art Counts for the Eyes Only
One way you can get around the prior art rule is to identify non-economic (non-technical) applications where you fall within the five-year time frame. A non-economic application is any application made before February 28, 2007. Of course, if you file an application before that time frame, it’s a prior art application and you could potentially be excluded from the patent process.
Prior Art Can Be in Patents Your Competitor filed
Remember that every application needs to do two things: it needs to create a new subject matter and leave the prior art in the dust.
3. How to apply for a patent?
When you have an idea for a new product, the first thing you should do is research the competition. If your idea is unique, you can apply for a patent, which gives you the right to manufacture, use, and sell your product. The first step is to search for products that are very similar to yours. Obviously, if you haven’t filed for a patent, it’s impossible to find similar ideas. But a friend of yours who is an engineer can check patents, and that friend of yours who’s an attorney can help you out. Ask friends, family, and acquaintances for patents. The technology industry has something to offer both in academia and at a local market like an internet startup.
Step 1: Make your idea different
Patents aren’t just about protecting your idea. They are about protecting your idea from others. It’s not right or wrong to make an idea different. Justifications vary as much as the industries themselves. But make sure you are unique. Otherwise, your patent won’t protect you. When you invent, you want to do the world a favour. Include original content, new techniques, or merely new applications. It shows that you went above and beyond what everyone else thought was possible. Keep up the purity of your idea by not including new techniques that already exist, as that kind of innovation puts you at risk waiting for your idea to be protected. While it’s OK to copy an idea, it must be new and original.
Step 2: Search for your keywords
The search engines can’t index your unique content. Only unique content gets a patent. You need to be thinking about keywords. Know what words your customers use. If you’re making a website, you can use your analytics to see what people are searching for in the real world. This is obvious. If you’re an internet startup, you’ve got a lot of investor capital backing you, so you should spend some time researching the investor’s sites and keywords. You might not find a patent immediately, but you should eventually. Patents are a tool to avoid competition.
4. How long does it take to get a patent?
It takes a long time to get a patent. First, a patent examiner will look at your patent application to see if it complies with all the requirements, and then they’ll issue a first office action — a rejection — if it doesn’t. If you disagree with their rejection, you can amend the application and send it back to them for review. If an amendment proves necessary, you’ll have to wait for another examiner to come through. If all goes well, and the patent is approved, you have your patent.
Patents expire after 30 years unless the inventor makes some changes. When an inventor makes those changes, they can renew the patent. An inventor can renew the original patent, but they can’t renew a commercial version of the patent.
Most patents are automatically renewed once a certain period of time has passed. Let’s say you have a patent that expires in 2035; if you don’t make any changes, then your patent will automatically renew every five years after the original term of 10 years. Let’s ignore for a moment whether you ever intended to make any changes to your invention. If you do, then your patent may go away for good. Any changes you make will need to be made in an application.
Assuming you’ve made necessary changes that make your invention new, other people can also make those changes. Those people should file a new application to incorporate those changes into the original patent.
The area of whether your invention is new or the same as an already existing one is often the most important part of getting a patent. You can later claim you discovered the idea independently, independently discovered a new way of doing something, independently invented something new, or independently invented a new category of invention. The extent to which you did those things will impact the potential duration of your patent.
Patents must be consistently extended to cover inventions made after a certain date. In most countries, inventions made after the effective date of a patent will be considered prior art if another inventor vanishes from the history of science.
5. What happens after you receive a patent?
After you’ve received your patent, there are five main things that you can do with it. You can sell the patent outright. You can license it to someone else. A patent license allows the owner of the patent to grant permission to another party to use the patented technology. The person who licenses the patent is called the “licensed inventor.”
With a patent license, the licensed inventor can check the accuracy of your research and benefit from your sharing of research results. However, the licensed inventor cannot directly charge others for use of the technology or the information contained in the research. In other words, if you make true, useful, non-infringing discoveries, there shouldn’t be an ethical issue with someone else profiting from your discoveries.
It’s important to clarify your intent when uploading a patent. Your intentions will determine whether or not you create an international treaty. After all, you and your international partners want to protect one another’s patents, right? So if someone asks to borrow your invention to do something unethical, your ability to grant permission for them to use your invention may be a factor in whether or not you can have that international treaty. Those of you who want to protect what you’re working on need to carefully consider your intentions.
If you decide to make an international treaty, you will need to complete the established procedures to incorporate the other party into your patent. Then, you will need to determine whether your invention is valuable enough to warrant international legal protection. Regardless of whether your invention is valuable enough to warrant legal protection if you decide to create it through the legal process outlined below, make sure to protect your information and hold copyright so others can’t take advantage of your work without paying a fair price for it.
If you decide not to create a treaty or don’t want someone else to make a copy of your invention, you need to consider the establishment procedures detailed below to have someone else enter your invention into the U.K.
