Posts Tagged: "prior art searches"

Intellectual Property Considerations and Guidance for Start-Ups: Patents

Intellectual property probably isn’t high on the to-do list for most new nonprofits and business start-ups. There’s plenty enough to do with setting up an organization, paying bills, and serving customers and clients. However, intellectual property is important and shouldn’t be overlooked. Companies and organizations that don’t protect their IP can risk losing hard-earned work and concepts. Also, companies can risk liability if they violate the IP rights of others, even unknowingly or by accident. Patents provide inventors the right to exclude others from using the technologies covered by the patent for a limited time. In exchange for exclusivity, inventors must disclose how to make and use the invention. An inventor can apply for a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), as well as other intellectual property offices around the world.

Dan Ovanezian & Laura Kees & Chris Kokoska & Christine Beaman Rankin

September 30, 2018

The China Syndrome: How recent developments in Chinese patents affect U.S. applicants

Chinese patents and patent applications are citable as prior art in most Western countries if they meet the usual criteria regarding publication dates of the cited patent and filing or priority dates of the examined patent. They always have been. However, recent developments have made them more problematic for Western country applicants, especially for independent inventors and small businesses… While in the past an inventor may have decided that it was not worth getting a patent, and many inventions have been forgotten in this manner, there is a large number of people in China who are now encouraged to file patents applications and utility model applications even for the simplest of invention. What we can do as patent agents and attorneys, is to start searching for Chinese documents when doing prior art searches. This may result in bad news for inventors who receive negative patentability reports, but at least they will not spend a lot of money only to have their patent application rejected later.

Manuel Fortin

October 12, 2016