What is a Patent?

Posted by Arun on May 18th, 2018

A patent mentions to a bundle of legal rights that enables a patent owner to eliminate others from practicing an innovation. Those rights incorporate the right to prohibit others from making, selling, offering to sell, and importing an invention.

In a looser sense, a patent additionally refers to the paper document that represents the bundle of lawful rights owned by the patentee over an invention. This document is broadly divided into two sections-1) the specification and 2) the claims. The specification provides a technical description of the invention and is divided into sections, the most vital of which is the detailed description. The claims, on the other hand, are the sections found toward the end of the patent document that encapsulate the patent owner's intellectual property rights over the invention.

Once you understand how your invention works and can describe it in writing, you should file for a patent as quickly as possible. This is so because the individual who is the first to document a patent application has priority over anyone else. The Patent Office, however, will not accept your application if it merely describes an idea for an invention. Rather, you should ensure that your application portrays your innovation in adequate detail. Something else, the Patent Office will reject your application and you won't be qualified for a patent.

How Long Does It Take to Get a Patent?

The average amount of time it takes for a patent application to be reviewed by the Patent is somewhat less than three years. There is, however, a wide difference in this measure of time depending upon the area of technology to which your application belongs. For instance, applications covering inventions related to semiconductors will take on average 29.3 months though innovations related to networking and telecommunications will take on average 40 months.

How Does the Patent Office Determine Whether a Patent Should Be Granted?

In order for the Patent Office to grant a patent, the patent applicant must meet a few legal issues - 1) that the innovation is novel; 2) that the innovation is non obvious; 3) that the development meets the base requirements for patent qualified topic; 4) that the patent application portrays the innovation in adequate detail.

What Is Patent Infringement?

In order to determine whether a patent is infringed, courts follow a two-step process. In the first place, the claims found towards the end of the patent must be interpreted in order to figure out what the development covers. Courts then compare the claims, as understood, to the development so as to decide whether there is a sufficient difference.  If there is no such difference, then the accused defendant infringes.

The Author of this article, Arun Mohan is writing articles for Swap Dial and Agrraj Consultancy Services