Tips for Filing Patents

Product development engineers, manufacturers, and inventors need to prepare for the patent process. Follow these tips.

Know what is patentable. To be patentable an invention must be new, useful and not obvious (to one “skilled in the art”). At a very high level, this means:

• No one has done this before in the realm of public knowledge.
• The patent has to do something. You could not, for example, patent a time machine simply because you can prove it works—or that it is “enabled,” in patent language.
• The patent cannot just take an invention that already exists and improve it in an obvious way.

Know when filing a patent is the right next step, which is when you want to gain exclusive rights, typically for financial reasons.

If the patent is issued, this allows the inventor the opportunity to monetize the invention as the market leader and keep others from making or selling a product that infringes upon the patent.

Know the process or bring an expert to file. One of the most important steps in the process is the patent search. This will turn up products that may preclude your own application.

Source: Supply Chain Management Review