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1. |
There is NO such thing as an international patent.
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| | There are "international applications" called PCT applications that need to
be converted into national applications within a period of maximum 30 months
in order to obtain a patent.
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2. |
Patent applications are NOT the same as granted patents.
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| | A patent application undergoes an examination process to see if it meets the
patentability requirements of the country it is lodged in. During this process,
the claims are often amended. Thus, a patent application contains claims reciting
what an applicant hopes to get patent protection for, and a patent contains
claims that have legal protection.
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3. |
Patents are examined, they are NOT peer-reviewed.
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| | Patent examiners assess an invention against the relevant prior art publicly
available in the field of the invention to determine whether it fulfills the
patentability criteria. The requirements for patentability are not the same
as the criteria used for publishing research results in a scientific journal.
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4. |
The applicant or assignee of a patent may not be the actual holder of the patent
rights.
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Patents are commercially tradeable assets, and the patent rights can be assigned or licensed to third parties, acquired in mergers etc. The holders of licenses or assignments, i.e. the actual rights to use the patents, are typically not listed in the national patent databases. In addition, the patent owner may have changed since the patent published, although because ownership (assignment) is typically recorded at patent offices the current owner can be determined. If you want to use a patented technology, it is a good idea to look in the patent office on-line records to establish the name of the actual rights-holder.
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5. |
Patents have a limited lifetime.
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| | A patent lasts for 20 years from the date of filing provided required maintenance
fees are paid. This period is the monopoly period granted to the owner of the
patent.
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6. |
Patents are rights with geographic boundaries.
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| | Patents are granted by the government of a country or jurisdiction and the
rights are valid only within its territorial boundaries.
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7. |
Infringement
of a patent is generally a legal matter between parties.
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In most countries,
infringement is a civil wrong, where a person's rights are violated and is
up to the
offended party to sue for damages or seek other legal remedies. In some
countries, including some European countries, infringement of a patent is
an act committed against the state and may be punishable by fines and imprisonment. |
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8. |
Claims define the limits of a patented invention and the boundaries of the patent
rights....
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| | not the titles, not the abstract, not the detailed description of the invention,
not the examples and figures.
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9. |
A patent does not guarantee that anyone will license the invention.
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| | As any tradeadable asset, a patent needs to be promoted, offered in the market
and commercialized actively in order to generate an income.
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10. |
Patent rights are exclusionary rights.
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| | They can be used to stop others from using, making, selling, offering to sell,
and importing the protected invention if they do not have the authorization
of the patent right holder.
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