Today, I am going answer a very frequently asked question by Inventor’s community which is “Why Should I obtain a Patent”? Yes, obviously this is very important to know, or you can say, a very genuine and logically correct question in the minds of the inventors, so, I am going to answer this question in 5 main points.
- Protection for 20 year
- Opportunity to Sell/license your invention
- Labels your work as patent protected
- Sparks innovation
- Unburdens you to keep your Invention as trade secret
Let’s discuss them one by one.
- Protection for 20 year
The most important benefit of having a Patent is that your invention gets protected for the next 20 years, which is actually a long time for which you can have a monopoly over your invention and have an explicit right over your invention.
Since the technology is running so fast that It has been seen that in almost 5-10 years sometimes, the inventions become obsolete because new versions come into the market. So obviously, getting a legal right over your invention for almost 20 years is a good enough time in which you can use your invention in whichever way you want.
Your invention is simply yours and only yours for the next 20 years. So this is the first important most benefit that I wanted to inform you.
- Opportunity to Sell/license your invention
Once you have a monopoly over your invention through patents, now you have the opportunity to use your invention in the best possible way and in your way !! Like If it is a product or a process that you may have patented, whereby you have developed a novel product or maybe a process, you can create a technology business out of it to get some monetary benefits.
You are also free to sell out your product/process idea to some other company and get a huge sum of money in return for transferring your invention to that company’s name.
Or the other way out is that you may decide to license your invention, exclusively to one company or to multiple companies and for each sale of your patented product being done, you can earn royalties transferred back to you.
Summarising in a line, there are multiple ways of earning money once your invention gets Patented. So, this also one of the distinctive advantages of patenting your work
- Labels your work as patent protected
So What? I mean you may be wondering that so what if we have a label given to our work as “Patent Protected” or “Not”?
So the answer is that the products/processes which are protected as patents attract your clients much much more than those which are not patent protected. This tag only/this label only increases the market value of your product. I have experienced some inventors calling me and asking very simple questions like “How can we label our work (our product) as Patent Pending/ Patent Protected?” the reason was that when they were pursuing the process of pitching their potential clients to sell/license their work, the other party, simply asked them that “Well your product seems to be good enough, but what is the Patent status of this product, is it Patent Pending or Patent protected? And this leaves them blank, because leave about status of the Patent, they don’t even know what is a Patent, and the procedures involved to get that..
So it’s important to know that having your product being labelled as “Patent Protected” increases you market value and manifolds the chances of successfully selling/licensing your product to your potential clients.
- Sparks innovation
As a social benefit, “Patents “create a feeling of Competitiveness”. The reason is that Patenting a Product provides you complete monopoly and exclusive rights. Now, some or all the other inventors out there in the world, who may be reading or maybe practicing your protected invention, may be excited by your work and having being aware of the fact, that they cannot themselves use this invention of yours for their personal benefits, may think of optimizing it or carving out new and novel improvements over your disclosed invention.
So this directly or indirectly, positively or negatively, actually sparks or increases innovation in a country or a world as a whole.
Also, the other way by which Patents spark innovation is that an inventor knows that whatever years and years of financial, physical, mental pressure he/she has gone through to get this invention created and protected, it will be worth it and will be fruitful for him once he/she gets a monopoly over it through patents and commercializes it to get monetary benefits. So he feels motivated because he knows that his work is his own and will remain his own for the next 20 years, no one can use it for personal benefits and hence his efforts involved in the R&D of realizing his idea/invention will not drain off in the hands of others. This motivates him to work on more and more inventions in the future and this, in turn, sparks innovation.
- Unburdens you to keep your Invention as a trade secret
Now you don’t have any burden in your mind or heart that you have to keep your invention as a big secret because of n number of fears that you may have like “what if someone may misuse your invention for their own personal benefits? ”. You are simply free from this burden and tension by just filing your patent.
Because, Once it is filed, from that day, the invention becomes prior art disclosed by you, and once you get it granted, though it is disclosed to others, you have a monopoly over it and rights to legally sue others if they misuse it without your permission.
I hope I have clearly and in detail answered the very question in your mind that “Why should you obtain a Patent” !!
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Disclaimer: The information provided on this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. The information provided should not be considered attorney advertising. All information is current at the time of the publication and is subject to change. Since there are many factors and complexities that come into patenting an idea, the visitors of this website should not take any actions, or refrain from acting, based on information contained on this website without first consulting their own attorneys.
