Kudos to your organisation for the innovations you constantly churn out! More people like you means better life for the world. Innovations are like creative miracles and they exist no where else in the world. Ain’t you just a star?
If you or your organisation is one which thrives majorly on the innovation by you, then this article is so important to you.
Investopedia.com defines patent as the granting of a property right by a sovereign authority to an inventor. This grant provides the inventor exclusive rights to the patented process, design, or invention for a designated period in exchange for a comprehensive disclosure of the invention. They are a form of incorporeal right.
Simply put, registering your innovation or discovery as a patent gives you the sole right to use the process and makes you own the innovation. No one else can take the credit or make gains from your innovation.
There are three types of patents:
- Utility patents cover anyone who invents a new and useful process, article of manufacture, machine, or a composition of matter.
2. Design patents include an original, new, and ornamental design for a manufactured product.
3. Plant patents go to anyone who produces, discovers, and invents a new kind of plant capable of reproduction.
Now, it might seem like if your discovery is for social good, then by all means, let everyone have the idea. There are many dangers to a non-patented innovation such that it is better secured with the security of patent. Even pharmaceutical companies patent their special innovations. It protects your invention against infringement.
If your concern is that the information ought to be available to the rest of the world then let it be so by franchise. Franchise is a more organised way of spreading your tentacles without losing control over your (organisation’s) rights over that innovation.
Apart from getting licensing fees and preventing competition, a core reason for patenting your innovation is that you may also lose the right to compete if another person files a patent for the product. First to patent gets the patent.
We hope this was helpful.
