1.5 How do we get a patent?

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From the course by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Protecting Business Innovations via Patent

19 ratings

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Protecting Business Innovations via Patent

19 ratings

This course assumes no prior knowledge in law, business or engineering. However, students with backgrounds in all three areas will find useful concepts or ideas in the course on how to protect business innovations using patents. The approach taken in this course is practical and commercial rather than theoretical. A combination of lectures and case studies help to illustrate the concepts and make the course more interesting. After completing this course, students should be able to understand how patents are issued and protect innovations, including: What is a patent? What do they protect? How do we get a patent? Where are patents valid? How much do they cost? In addition to basic concepts the course also deals with advanced topics such as: software patents, business process patents, patenting life, patent trolls and multiple case examples of large and small companies using patents and patent lawsuits. We also expect you to have fun in this course. So go forth and enjoy!

From the lesson

Introduction to Patents

Welcome to Protecting Business Innovations via Patents! Why are patents so important? You will learn about the basics of patents and how they are useful in protecting innovation as well as some of the limitations and costs of patents. This first module allows you to "survey the buffet". Before you start your survey of Patents, take some time to review the assignments, grading and general course guidelines for this course. Also, don't forget to introduce yourself and say hello to your fellow learners.

1.1 What is a patent?8:39

1.2 What do patents protect?8:25

1.3 Why do governments create them?9:03

1.4 How does a law get made?5:52

1.5 How do we get a patent?7:48

1.6 Where are patents valid?8:36

Meet the Instructors

Theodore Henry King CLARK
Associate Professor
Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management Department

Welcome back to our course on protecting business innovations via patents.

Once you've realized how valuable patents are, both to corporations and

society, your next question may be, how do I get one?

In this session, we're going to look at three different kinds of patents and

how do you get them.

Utility, design, and utility model, or petty patent.

Most of our course, we will be looking only at utility patents.

But in this particular session, I want to do some comparing and contrasting of

both what it takes to get one, and how different these three are.

For utility patents there are three main steps to get a utility patent.

I'm not going to go into the steps in detail here.

Because the second module of our course focuses in depth

on what it takes to get a provisional patent.

What is the process of filing the formal patent application,

what goes along with it, how long does it take, what does it cost?

And how you navigate the patent review and appeal process.

That's module two, and so I'm not going to delve into that in great detail here,

just let me say that the steps are not equally difficult.

Step one is very quick and easy, and even optional, but

you should do it, and you should do it quickly and cheaply.

So the second step is a lot more work and a lot more money, and

the third step is hugely expensive.

Beyond these steps you might ask, well, what is In the patent application,

what do you have to show to get one?

Well, there are three main requirements to get a utility patent.

These three requirements are fairly basic and simple.

It has to be new or novel.

It has to be useful because it's called a utility patent, so it has to show utility.

And it has be non-obvious, now,

this non-obvious requirement is tricky to figure out.

You might be able to say it's not obvious what

non-obviousness is, or it's not easy to see.

And we'll have much more discussion of this in module three,

where most of our effort and time will be spent in this non-obviousness idea.

Because it's the hardest,

trickiest part of the utility patent is showing non-obviousness.

But we'll come back to that in module three.

In contrast, design patents are easy, you still have to show three things,

but the three things you have to show are almost trivial to show.

They're so easy to get a design patent.

Design patent simply protects appearance, and

all you have to do to get a design patent is show that it's new or novel, original,

that you've created it, not copied from somebody else, and it's ornamental.

A design patent is a lot like copyright, and

copyright is easy to get, design patents are easy to get.

The bad news is, most of the time, you're not talking about suing for

a lot of money.

But one of the cases we'll look at in week four was a case of Apple versus Samsung,

where design patents ended up in a huge ruling for Apple,

and were a big part of that case.

In fact, as a result of that ruling,

the Supreme Court listened to hearings and arguments about design patents.

And one of the first cases in many,

many centuries that they've looked at on desing patents.

And so design patents are in the news, and

they're a bigger deal now than they used to be.

But they're easy to get and cheap to get, and

they're about 10% of patents in America and most other countries.

Utility model is 0% in America, it's not allowed.

But in some countries, it's a significant portion of total patents issued.

It matters in Germany, it matters in some other countries in Europe.

And it's more than a third of all patents in China.

So it's very useful in some countries,and it's easy to get.

The great news about a utility model patent is, it's a short,

quick, low-cost application.

The government gives a very quick approval.

They don't spend a lot of time on it,

and what's interesting is, there have been some recent large judgments,

particularly in China, on utility model patent violations.

This starts to raise interest,

just like the Apple case raised interest in design patents.

Utility model patents in China are getting a lot more interest as some big

judgements start to happen.

And companies start to say, whoa,

I didn't know we could make this much money with this easy a patent.

So it's worth understanding, you might dismiss it and

say, America doesn't do it, therefore I don't care.

Well, if you're doing business in China or you're doing business in Europe,

you should care.

These patents matter, they're just simpler and easier to do.

So I don't have to spend a lot of time on a course on it.

Just go to your attorney, talk about something you've invented,

which is not worthy of a utility patent, but it might be simple for

a quick application as a utility model or petty patent.

Now, when we think about an overview of these three kinds of patents.

Utility patents are hard, they're expensive,

they're difficult to get, they take years to apply for

a receive a utility patent.

They last for 20 years, but they can take you 3 years to get one, sometimes more.

A design patent, it's easy to get fast, quick, its life is a little bit shorter.

But it's still pretty decent, compared to the amount of time and

cost required to get one.

So if you're a startup business, you may be able to go get a design patent and

tell investors, they say, do you have a patent on your new invention?

You say yeah, yeah, we've got patent number such and such.

Well, if they know much about patent law, they may well say, well,

that's a design patent, that's nice.

You probably got a copyright and a trademark too,

but do you have a utility patent?

Maybe, but some investors may say, wow, that's cool, you have a patent.

And you could still say that, so design patents have their place.

Utility model, the duration varies, whether they're even allowed varies.

But what does not vary from country to country is,

they're simple, fast, and easy to do, and they're narrow in focus.

They're a narrow, petty, small invention, which is not worthy of a utility patent,

not as big as a utility patent, but simple and cheap to get.

That's it, thank you for being with us in this video.

We hope we get to spend time with you again, thank you.

[MUSIC]

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