How to patent an invention: criteria and procedure description

The modern reality in business dictates its own rules: it is necessary to protect not only material investments, but also the results of intellectual activity. The introduction of innovations gives a significant advantage over competitors and ensures profit.

How to patent an invention?

To effectively protect intellectual property, it is necessary to obtain a patent for an invention, that is, acquire exclusive rights to use it. Before you patented an invention, it is worthwhile to find out what is meant by this concept.

The invention is considered to be a unique technical solution applicable to objects (devices, substances, animal or plant cells, strains of microorganisms) or to a method - the process of material means impact on material objects.

Due to the lack of a technical solution, the invention is not:

• Mathematical methods, discoveries and scientific theories;
• Decisions related to changing the appearance;
• Methods and rules of games, business or intellectual activity;
• Decisions aimed only at providing information;
• Computer programs.

The invention also does not include the excretion of a new breed of animals and plant varieties by a biological method (except for microbiological methods), the topology of integrated microcircuits.

How to get a patent for an invention?

First, an application is submitted to the federal agency for intellectual property (Federal Institute of Industry). The application can be submitted by the author of the invention or his employer. The patent is issued to individuals and legal entities. In joint registration (before patenting an invention), a contract regulating civil-law relations is concluded , and each patent owner may use the invention for his own purposes.

You can apply by fax. Then, no later than one month after sending the fax, you must provide the original documents with a cover letter certifying the previously sent documents. If all conditions are met, the filing date is calculated from the date of receipt by fax. In order not to ponder how to patent an invention, and submit your application yourself, trust a specialist who professionally deals with patenting.

One invention is indicated in the application. It is also acceptable to mention a group of inventions, only interconnected and representing a single inventive concept.

The receipt of a patent for an invention is accompanied by the formation of a package of documents:

• An application for the grant of a patent, where the author of the invention or a person in whose name the patent is requested shall be indicated;
• Description of the invention (area and state of the art, implementation);
• The formula of the invention, which manifests its essence and is based on the description;
• Materials required for explanation (diagrams, drawings, graphs);
• Abstract (short description of merits).

You must pay a patent fee or submit a document that exempts you from payment. Further the application passes two stages of a formal examination. At the first stage, compliance with the rules for processing the application is checked. At the second stage, similar statements are checked by expert bureaus, and then experts assess compliance with three main criteria: novelty (that no one has ever used the same technical solution), industrial applicability (the possibility of applying the invention in practice) and inventive level.

Based on the results of the audit, subject to compliance with patentability, a patent is issued for the invention, otherwise a refusal will be issued explaining the reasons.