Patents Explained

Intellectual property in the UK is split into four main sections which each protect a different type of creation or invention from being copied illegally. These four types are patents, designs, trademarks, and copyrights. The amount and type of protection your invention will receive in the UK depends on which type of intellectual property cover you have.Patents are designed to protect new processes and features of products. If you own a patent on a process, no-one can manufacture, copy or sell goods using the same process without gaining your permission. With a patent you also have the choice to sell your invention (including the rights to it), license it (while keeping all of the intellectual property rights yourself) or choose to allow people to use your patented process if it benefits you in some other way. If any company or individual begins using the process or feature you have patented without your permission you can sue them, and will have a very strong case in court.A patent is therefore a strong card to hold for a company, and is also quite difficult to secure. For an invention to be patentable it must be completely new, have made a leap forward inventively in a way that is not obvious to an expert in the field, and it must be able to be reproduced in industry. There is no point in patenting something that cannot be reproduced.On the other hand, there are many things that your invention cannot be if it is to be patented. For example, you cannot patent a literary work, such as a song or a book. You cannot patent a scientific discovery. You cannot patent any method of medical treatment (or a diagnosis), and you cannot patent anything which is criminal or immoral. Finally, you cannot patent a way of presenting information, a way of doing business or a method of playing a game.Even if your invention passes all of these criteria – what are the chances that someone has previously patented a similar process or feature? To check, one can ask the IPO (the Intellectual Property Office) to do a patent search for potentially clashing patents for a fee. This will give you further information on how likely it is your patent is going to pass, give you an idea of the patents your competitors hold, and also give you a good overview of the current state of the art technology in your field.