what are the advantages of getting patent for invention

What are advantages of getting patent in India ?

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This is a common question being asked many times by inventors in hope of judging whether it is really worth to go for filing a patent for the invention.

Before answering this question, I would ask what are the advantages of having a real estate property on your name?

  • You can rent it
  • You can sell it
  • You can stop others from using it without your permission
  • You can use it for your purpose (business or residence)

In similar terms, the patent is an intellectual property and has all the advantages stated above, but you need to claim it to be in your name, hence the filing of a patent application for your invention.  There is a difference though, Unlike real estate, the patent has the term of 20 years of ownership. after that they are open to being used by anyone. Hence the Patents system are built to encourage the innovation and growth of the economy by providing patent winner and exclusive right on the invention (intellectual property) for a limited time.

Advantages of owning a patent would be: 

  • You own the invention for a given time (20 years)
  • You can use it to build a business
  • Rent it (in this case license it) to existing businesses
  • Exclude all others for using, selling, offering for sale, and importing your invention in your country
  • You can completely sell the patent to another company

hence this gives a unique advantage to the patent owners which can be leveraged for:

  1. Building a business around the invention
  2. Having a patent helps in raising capital for business
  3. Patent rights can be licensed to other companies to receive royalty payments
  4. You can sell the patent
  5. Being an owner of the patent you have the rights to block others from
    1. making,
    2. using,
    3. selling or offering for sale, and
    4. importing the patented invention
  6. Thus businesses and inventors can have a complete monopoly and competitive advantage

I am a research student; do I need to be aware of patents in my research area?

As a research student, you need to be very careful that you are not putting all of your efforts into something which is already invented and patented. If that becomes the case, you would be re-inventing the wheel and probably all your research efforts are not worth whole a lot. Having said that, we have also seen many people working on particular invention gets discouraged up on finding hundreds and thousands of patent from their domain and similar to their technology…

Getting patent is NOT always about inventing something earth breaking solution !!! even small solution solving problems in existing (known) technology can win patent

Many patents are awarded for inventions that are either

  • technically advance or
  • economically significant to the existing patents (or prior art)

So, prior art documents or patents that are already existing can be 99% similar to your invention Yet, if your invention has either technical advance or economic significance or both… and you can prove it that your invention is better than existing ones by means of results comparisons testing and if possible working model, then there is a strong possibility that you may get patent for your invention.

The best way to go about making this decision is to get help from patent agents or patent attorneys.

The novelty search (also called as patentability search) is performed for the same reason, This patentability search, done right, can yield pretty fantastic results for your invention;

  • It can tell you what part of your invention is already covered and what could be a novelty feature…
  • it can tell you where you can focus your research work to get the maximum level of protection with your patent
  • and it gives a review about whether it is appropriate to proceed with the patent filing process

for more information or to get answers to questions about your invention reach patent attorneys and patent agents here.

When should I consider filing patent in India ?

cost of patent registration in India

Filing of the patent application should be the first priority at any stage of your research and development, even before you publish the invention and or disclose it in speaking or to a group of people. filing patents in India should be taken as a priority to obtain appropriate protection for your research work.

If you are at a very early stage of developing your invention read guidelines on How a provisional patent application could save you costs initially to help you with additional time to test the financial worth of your invention and testing the market before going for the entire patent process.

However, there are instances where you need to disclose the invention before applying for a patent like discussing with patent professionals, supervisors, partners, technical assistants, etc. Or when you are doing an initial analysis of the commercial worth of the invention before applying for a patent, In such instances you need to protect the confidentiality of it by way of signing a Non-disclosure agreement (NDA) by parties to whom you are disclosing the invention.

The best thing to do would be to file a provisional application if you are at an early stage in research and development.

The provisional application discloses the nature of the invention. This document helps in securing the date of application even if you are not completely ready with the invention to be protected. You get 12 months of time to file complete specification and decide whether or not to go ahead with the entire procedure for applying for a patent, which is time-consuming and costly.

Read complete guidelines on how can you save costs with provisional patent application in India

If you could not file the patent application on time or delayed the step to apply for a patent, the following problems may happen;

  • Other inventors doing research work in the same field as your invention and may file the application for patent (in India it is first to file system) then you will lose the opportunity.
  • There may be some information similar to your invention gets published may be as a research report or a technical blog etc, which can become a prior art and completely eliminate the possibility of getting a patent. Since your invention becomes public knowledge before you apply for patent

Hence, it is sensible to apply for a patent even if with provisional specification as early as possible and secure the date for your invention.

Although it is not always necessary to go for provisional specification, you can directly file complete specification with the application for a patent if you are ready with the information to be protected.

The inventors seeking patent protection can be found in different stages:

Some seek patent protection at the initial ideation stage and some seek patent protection after the publication of the invention and displaying it in public without proper confidentiality measures. And within these two lies intermediate phases of research.

Being too early and too late in the patent application is harmful. If you are too early, you may be in an ideation stage and can lose crucial time, since you might not yet figure out what to do next and no planning exists, so you might miss opportunities to appropriately commercialize the patent. And if you are too late, chances are you would lose the priority or even invention since someone else come up with the same patent application before you file one. 

check our section on what are the advantages of getting a patent in India for my invention.

Prasad Karhad
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