If you've got a great invention, the last thing you want is for someone to patent it first!
Inventing and innovation is the first step to cornering the market in a given industry. The first person to patent an idea or invention wins. Every inventor is probably aware of the infamous patent war between Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Grey. Both men had an invention for transmitting speech: Bell beat Grey to the patent punch and as a result, the world knows just one telephone inventor.
Today we live in a worldwide market. Inventors have international competition in the battle to come up with the next great thing. Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent applications are a considerably affordable way to receive patent protection all over the world for 30 months. This makes it possible for you to boost the value of your invention while keeping the capacity to file in almost all countries until the expiration of the 30 month period.
Note that while filing your PCT patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office (USPTO) gives you exclusive, international rights to your invention, it does actually protect you in any specific country. You will have to file a national application in each country that you want patent protection, even the United States, within the 30 month period.
The difficulty for all but the most wealthy inventors and businesses is that foreign filing of a patent application may well be a very expensive and complicated procedure. Each and every foreign country has its own patent laws, rules, and regulations, in addition to substantial fees for filing and maintaining patents. However, dismissing the world market in an international economy may result in a considerable lost opportunity for your invention and could possibly significantly dissipate the value of your invention and its wider intellectual property worth.
After 30 months, the PCT patent application must be filed in any country such as the U.S., China, Japan or all the European countries with a single filing in the European Patent Office in which you want patent protection. Note that the PCT patent application won't switch to an international patent, since there is no multinational patent at this point.
Even after any U.S. patent filing, you have 1 year to file internationally, such as with a PCT application. If you pass the 1 year filing deadline, you will forever lose all international patent rights on your invention. It is obligatory for you to make the appropriate decision about foreign filing preferably based on a number of business factors.
Patent Attorney tips for PCT applications:
There are a several things you should think about prior to filing a PCT patent application. Contacting with a qualified and knowledgeable patent attorney is a proper first step if you aren't sure what to do next. Here are a couple of general questions to consider:
• Do you strategy to license your invention to a multinational firm? If that's the case, preserving your international filing rights having a PCT application may be critical to their interest in investing in, generating, or using your item or service. Without patent protection, they might not be capable of safe sufficient income to make your invention worthwhile for them to develop.
• Does your company program to sell internationally products or solutions using your invention? If so, without foreign patent protection you could not be able to be competitive.
• What markets do you expect would present a considerable customer base for your product/service now and inside the long term?
• Do you currently get any foreign business, inquiries, or interest?
If your answer is yes to any one such factor, then it is sensible to secure the right to file foreign patents all around the world, even if you later choose not to proceed with the process of getting patent protection. This is specifically what the PCT patent application enables you to do, i.e., defer the decision of if or where to file internationally at a relatively low cost, particularly when compared to the extremely high cost of filing separately in each foreign country.
The PCT patent application gives you time to determine which foreign markets turn out to be the most valuable and worthwhile to apply for patent protection in.
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