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FORMS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) are rights governed by statute that provide individuals with a right to prevent others from exploiting or abusing their intellectual creations. The more common forms of IPR are patents, trade marks, copyright, design rights, confidential information and know-how, and all of these play an important role in the innovation process.

PATENTS

A patent is a legal title granted to an applicant for protection of an invention. It is a registerable form of IP.

The patent is granted for a limited period by the patent office, acting as an instrument of the government in the country in which the patent is applied for.

Every country’s legislation includes laws for the protection of IP, in which there is a provision for patent laws to govern the protection of inventions in that country.

CONVENTIONS AND TREATIES

However, most countries today also have signed up to international agreements and treaties on the protection of IP and, thus, their patent systems are harmonised to a great extent.

PATENT COOPERATION TREATY

The PCT was established in 1970 and currently has a membership of 144 contracting states.

REFINEMENTS OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT SYSTEM

There have been discussions at the EPO and EU Council for many years now on the introduction of new features to the European patent system, which would improve the overall cost and efficiency of filing and enforcing patents in EU Member States.

The benefit of a country being a party to this treaty is that a national or resident of a PCT state needs to file only one application in order to obtain patent protection in any of the countries that are members of the PCT treaty.

REQUIREMENTS FOR A PATENT

The invention must be novel (new).

It must involve an inventive step (not obvious).

It must be capable of industrial application.

It must not fall into the ‘excluded’ category for non-patentable matter.

Additionally, the applicant is required to disclose sufficient information in the patent application to show how the invention works.

INTERNATIONAL PATENT PROTECTION

To obtain worldwide exclusivity for an invention, a patent application first must be filed in a country that is a member of the Paris Convention mentioned above.

The date on which it is filed establishes a worldwide ‘priority date’ for the invention.