Patents help enterprises establish competitive advantage in the marketplace. Understanding what patents are, how they function, and why they matter is key to grasping the broader landscape of intellectual property and innovation.
Concept of Patents
The term "patent" originates from the Latin patere, meaning "to lay open," which references the disclosure requirement—the cornerstone of the patenting process. It is a form of incorporeal, intellectual property.
A patent grants its inventor(s) the exclusive legal right to prevent others from making, using, selling, copying, imitating or replicating such inventor’s or inventors’ ‘invention’. —that is, the design, product, process, solution or other technical improvements, which contains some element of inventiveness over what had been previously known—for a limited period of time, typically 20 years. But such exclusive rights can be exercised only after the application for the grant of patent for the invention has been approved by the competent authority of the country or territory, for which such rights are desired and sought.
A patent may be granted for any new (or novel) and useful invention, or for any improvement thereof, involving an inventive step and capable of industrial application. Such grant shall be subject to the terms, conditions and requirements of applicable statutory and regulatory provisions.
It may thus be granted for the invention of any device, product, system, method, process (including manufacturing process), machine or composition of matter, regardless of the technical field that such invention pertains to.
Purpose of Patenting
The grant of a patent confers special and exclusive rights on its legal owner(s) and inventor(s), who can potentially exercise the rights to derive economic and competitive value therefrom. For instance, a patent can be potentially used to prevent others from either imitating the patented invention; or, including any part thereof in their own products and inventions for financial gain or benefit. Also, when breakthrough inventions are efficaciously “patent-protected”, substitute, alternative and competitive products, methods and technologies may even be rendered obsolete.
Hence, it is extremely beneficial for inventors to apply for the grant of patent rights, because patented inventions may pose serious challenges for competitors. However, patents are granted only for what are judged to qualify as ‘patentable inventions.’
At BLAZE VENTURES, we have elaborate processes and qualified professionals for assisting innovators and enterprises obtain patent rights effectually for their ideas, innovations and inventions.
