Questioning how to patent a product? Some of the patent applications may not stand a chance of ever receiving a grant of patent, yet, they can still be very useful for the product and the inventor commercially. Filing a patent application for your product shows your vigorous intent of protecting your intellectual property.
Before filing a patent application for your product you should understand what basically product patent entails.
All forms of intellectual property aim at providing protection for the invention or idea or a work of the mind, encouraging technological and economic development. Similarly patent provides exclusive privilege to the inventor in return for complete disclosure of the invention.
The patent under Indian law is mainly granted for process and product.
Under Process patent the method of developing a product is protected but not the end result, that is, the product. Hence, anyone coming up with the same product through different method can sell the same product commercially without paying the inventor of the product.
However, this is not the case for Product patent provides an exclusive right to the inventor over the invention completely as even if the third party comes up with a different process the end result for it is protected under patent law.
A 'patent pending' tag on the products that the person is pitching is for sure way of obtaining agreements from companies that have been tested and used by many of the start-up owners. For instance, many of the larger companies may refuse to sign a confidentiality agreement or may not agree to never compete with you; a 'Patent Pending' tag is for sure going to deters them.
There are ways to achieve all this through the patent application process at a reasonable cost. Here’s how to quickly gain patent protection for your product, via an ordinary or provisional patent application using a patent attorney or agent
Learning how to patent a product is important for all the companies, start-up and entrepreneurs as any mistake in the patent application will be a costly one and may take you a step back in your progress you have made.
Prior to getting a patent for a product, it is always recommended that you perform a complete Google search for your patent. A patent search will help you determine if you should spend the money and time on patenting a product or should you begin commercialising on the invention.
While a patent search is not a guarantee of patentability or as such required by the Patent Office, but it is usually considered the first step before getting a patent on a product.
Based on the patent search, it can be seen that getting a patent for your product is feasible or not, If the patent is considered feasible the next step is to prepare a patent application. Applicant has two main options while preparing your patent application:
(1) Prepare a draft the patent application yourself or
(2) hire a qualified Patent Attorney.
Learning how to patent a product yourself can be very difficult, as it is for most experience inventors as well. Most reputable people in the invention industry will always recommend hiring a patent attorney to patent a product.
A patent attorney has years of experience in preparing and prosecuting patent applications with the Indian Patent Office and that should give your product the best chance of getting a patent.
During the preparation of your patent application for the product, your patent attorney will send you a draft of the patent application to review prior to filing it with the Patent Office.
The application that is approved by you, in the next step will be filed by the patent attorney. Once the application is filed with the patent office the inventor can use a patent-pending tag.
Once the patent application is received by the Patent Office, they will conduct a separate patent search and send you their patentability opinion for the product. The opinion will indicate the patentability of your product.
To patent a product, the patent attorney will have to file a Response with the Patent Office arguing why the product seeking grant deserves a patent.
The Patent Office will respond with a Notice of Allowance which indicates that the product can receive a patent. However, the Patent Office will send an examination report indicating that the Patent Examiner disagrees with the Response filed by you or your attorney.
Assuming you receive a Notice of Allowance, you will then be required to pay a government fee to get a patent on the product. once the fees are paid to the patent office the patent is granted after that.
Generally, grant of the patent takes up to 2 to 3 years for being granted.
Non-Provisional patent applications or a complete patent specification for your product should be made up of the following parts:
Product patents are government-granted monopolies that give you exclusive rights to monetize your end product of the invention. Product patent regime is mainly followed in the pharmaceutical industry. Product patent can be quite valuable as they generate great royalty revenue from the patented product.