You’ve come up with a brilliant idea for a product. How do you know if it's patentable? Do you need a patent attorney to make sure? Is there something you can check yourself? This post will show you what to look for, and what you need to think about when making your decision. You'll also find links at the end of this post that will take you to several patents so that you can see how the UK Patent Office decides whether an invention is patentable or not.
1. What’s a patent?
A patent is a government-granted monopoly on the use of an invention. It allows the patent holder the exclusive right to make, use, or sell the patented invention for a period of time. You can file a patent for any new, useful, and non-obvious invention. To be patentable, an invention must be new and useful, and not obvious. Patents give inventors a strong incentive to make sure they make the right innovations. If someone else invents an invention, the patent might prevent them from selling their invention and profiting off of it. If it’s obvious to you, you can start selling your idea. But if other people don’t think it’s obvious, then you may have to wait until they do. This encourages inventors to think carefully about whether or not their idea is patentable.
A quick note on evidence: Even if the patent is granted, patent law gives the inventor (the patent owner) the right to demand evidence that the claimed invention is not already widely known or patented. Don’t beg your friends to find the patent for you; it’s never going to happen. In fact, in almost every country, public authorities make it illegal for someone to hide his invention for others.
I’ll use a personal example. I invented the “ugly sweater” — basically a giant collar that hung from your torso. My patent expired at the end of 2018. The original patent application was discovered over ten years later by my daughter’s lawyer. She found several women who owned ugly sweaters. All of them wanted to sell them because she could show that they owned unusual sweaters.
One of them had clothes that were illegible. Another complained that her sweater was shaped like a pom-pom. None of these women could prove that they owned an ugly sweater. We can see that so-called “patentable” inventions can be difficult to verify.
Sue Me, the company that owns the trademark for the ugly sweater, sent me a demand letter for $30,000. Now, getting a $30,000 patent in 2021 in the United Kingdom is no easy task.
2. How do you know if your invention is patentable?
If you're an inventor, you might be wondering if your idea can be patented. Whether your idea is patentable depends on how unique it is. The U.K. Patent and Trademark Office (UKIPO) considers your invention patentable if it is "novel" and "non-obvious" and has "utility.” I don't want to get too technical, but you can read the UKIPO’s definition of “utility” here.
Are You an Early Applicant?
Oh! Yes and no! There are lots of people who think their invention can't be patented and get upset when they find out that other people can think their idea is patentable too. Let me say that again because I actually get upset when I hear people talking about their inventions being "patentable." Patents were meant to encourage innovation. It's pretty clear what the intention of the patent system is: encouraging innovation. By inventing a new idea, you can help promote innovation. So yes, you should be an "early applicant," but that is not the same thing as saying your idea is patentable.
Is the Conversion to Against Patent Law Efficient?
Unfortunately, the answer to the "is your idea patentable" question is no. A patent attorney will tell you that before you have a chance to make your idea patentable, you need to prove that you actually have a good patent idea. Good ideas aren't patentable because you have to have the insight or insight to come up with a perfect idea. The UKIPO is talking about your idea's usefulness to a broad (non-exhaustive) group of potential consumers. As long as the "potential consumers" isn't a small niche, the patent is relevant to wide swaths of the population and therefore potentially patentable. An idea becomes "broad" when it is difficult to define or to demonstrate how it relates to the "target group."
3. How do you keep someone from stealing your idea before you get to market?
If you’re worried that someone is going to steal your idea, the best thing you can do is make sure you’ve taken care of the details and are ready to go to market. If you’re not ready to go to market yet, then you’re not ready to start talking to other people about your idea. In this article, I’ll talk about a checklist of things to do before you even talk to anyone else.
10 Checklist Items to Complete BEFORE Talking to Anyone Else. Determine if the idea is patentable. Determine if you can patent the idea
The first thing to do before you even talk to anyone else about your idea is to determine whether or not you can patent the idea. Obviously, if you know in advance whether or not you can patent an idea, this doesn't need to happen. But if you or your team doesn't know after you make the idea, then these ten steps can help. [Bonus: Bonus extra points if you determine whether or not you can't patent the idea while also talking to the person(s) who are going to make it.]
Determine from your own specific knowledge if your idea is patentable. If you or your team has done lots of SEO, you probably know that your idea is patentable. If you or your team has done a lot of usability testing, it's probably not patentable. This is because how you talk to customers at the beginning of the process is likely different from how you talk to customers at the end of the process. You may even have different ways of capturing the information. For example, the copy might be in a scaled-down form at the beginning of the test and then recorded at the end of the test. The scaling down is less sensitive to mistakes that might occur at the other end of the process and help avoid manipulation issues later on. Maybe you print out your ideas and scan them at the end. The scanning might aid in detecting if someone else has modified your ideas after the fact.
4. What resources can I use to check my invention before I spend money on a patent lawyer?
There are a few resources that can help you to test whether an invention is worth protecting by filing a patent. The first is the United Kingdom Patent and Trademark Office (UKIPO), which is a government agency that offers a searchable database of patents and patent applications. You can search by title, inventor, assignee, and even a few keywords. You can also access records for an individual patent from the website. Alternatively, you can search for patents on PubPatX; these are publicly available patent applications.
If you’re joined in an invention by other inventors, knowledge about prior patents and applications is helpful, but it isn’t enough to figure out whether the proposed invention is patentable. Before filing for a patent, you should keep in mind three questions that will help you to determine if your invention is patentable. These questions should never be answered with “it depends” or “it depends on the circumstances.”
How does a patent protect an invention?
A patent gives the owner of the patent exclusive rights allowing others not in the United Kingdom to make, use, sell, offer to sell, or import that invention. There are many possible inventions that could purport to independently invented the “invention.” The ability to protect the invention with a patent is governed by 35 UKC 101, a “patent law.” Most people understand the basic idea of copyright, but what about a patent?
The U.K. General Accounting Office (GAO) surveyed non-patenting businesses to determine their views of safety and health trade secrets; their views on whether they should be protected by patents; and their position on software that they classify as a patent. It’s important to note the words “patent” and “inspiration.” Patents were not explained in detail; in general, businesses were unsure if they would recognize the novelty of a patent.
This lack of clarity is compounded by the fact that it has been difficult to define what exactly constitutes an invention.