Patent Registration
- Art Teacher
- London, UK
- 5-7 Hrs
Imagine spending months—or even years—perfecting a groundbreaking idea, only to see someone else profit from it. Painful, right? That’s exactly where patents come in. A patent gives you the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling your invention for a certain period, turning your innovation into a strategic business asset. This protection encourages innovation by allowing inventors and businesses to commercialize their ideas without immediate competition. To qualify for a patent, an invention must generally be novel, non-obvious, and industrially applicable.Patent registration is handled by national or regional intellectual property (IP) offices—like the USPTO (U.S.), EPO (Europe), or IP India—and may extend internationally through treaties such as the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
- Patent Application Form (e.g., Form 1 in India, Form 101 in the U.S.)
- Provisional or Complete Specification (detailed description of the invention)
- Drawings or Diagrams (if applicable)
- Declaration of Inventorship
- Abstract of the Invention
- Power of Attorney (if filed through a patent agent)
- Priority Documents (if claiming priority from a previous filing in another country)
- Fee Payment Receipt
- Patent Search (optional but recommended)
- Draft and File Application
- Publication
- Request for Examination (RFE)
- Examination and Office Actions
- Respond to Objections
- Grant of Patent
- Maintenance
FAQs
Yes, you can patent an invention without a prototype, as long as your patent application describes the invention clearly and with enough detail for someone skilled in the field to replicate it.
The ‘first to file’ rule awards patent rights to the first person to file a patent application, not necessarily the first to invent.
Non-obviousness means an invention must not be an obvious idea or improvement to someone skilled in the field. It must reflect an inventive step beyond what’s already known.
Yes, patents can be jointly owned. Unless agreed otherwise, each inventor generally has equal and independent rights to use or license the patent, sometimes without accounting to the co-inventor—depending on local laws.
The doctrine of equivalents allows a court to find infringement even if the accused product or process does not literally copy every element of a patent claim, as long as it performs substantially the same function in the same way to achieve the same result.