Intellectual Property Rights - patents

The Intellectual Property Office describe a patent as 'protecting the features and processes that make things work, letting inventors profit from their inventions.' Anything to be patented needs to be seen as a unique invention and 'have an inventive step that is not obvious to someone with knowledge and experience in the subject'. (IPO 2011) Any patented invention must be 'capable of industrial application', meaning it can be made and used in some kind of industry. Consequently, you can't patent a concept but you can patent the
mechanical means of achieving that concept.

A patent protects an invention from being copied, made, imported or sold by anyone else without prior permission from the registered patent holder. A patent gives the legal right to stop anyone else from exploiting an invention and allows damages to be claimed where this has taken place. A patent also allows you to sell the invention and the IP rights, licence the invention and retain the IP rights and share the invention with others to set up a business based around the invention. (IPO 2011) After 18 months patents are published allowing the public to benefit from the technological advancements achieved.

A patent has to be applied for and involves the payment of a fee. The usual amount is £230-£280 to process an application in the UK. In order to verify the invention as unique the process can be complex and involves a paid search where the invention is checked against existing inventions and patents. Typically a patent can take 2-3 years to grant.

An example of a patent dispute

Three years ago the electronic giants Sony and LG failed to renew technology sharing agreements. Since then they have been involved in 7 separate patent disputes that came to a head last March when up to 300,000 PS3 consoles were seized in the Netherlands. The legal wrangles came to an end this August when the two companies dropped the lawsuits against each other and signed a cross licensing deal.



Bibliography
Intellectual Property Office. (2011) http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/patent.htm [14/11/2011]

Halliday, Josh. (28/02/2011) 'European customs to sieze Playstation shipments in legal dispute'. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/28/playstation-3-lg-legal-dispute?intcmp=239 [15/11/2011]

Halliday, Josh. (09/03/2011) 'PS3's seized in Sony-LG patent dispute' http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/09/sony-ps3-lg-blu-ray-dispute [15/11/2011]

Jin, H. Negishi, M. Edited Hopfner, J. Radford, J. (11/08/2011) 'Sony, LG Electronics settle bitter patent dispute'. Reuters.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/tech-us-sony-lg-idUKTRE77A0AF20110811 [15/11/2011]