Ways to Market Your Invention

GRANTING of a patent does not guarantee commercial success no matter how ingenious your invention is. There are many factors other than patent protection involved in the commercial success of a product.

Obtaining a patent is only the first in a series of steps by the patent owner to make a commercial success of his or her invention. The common saying 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent perspiration holds true when getting a patented invention into the market.

Marketing and commercializing is a crucial stage of an invention and could determine whether that invention that was supposed to make people’s lives easier actually gets brought by those same people for whom it was intended!

Marketing and commercializing and invention is an expensive affair. One way is to take a major gamble and go into it alone. The individual inventor would surely be short of cash. A more popular method of raising funds is to get into a joint venture either with a partner (doesn’t matter if he is a sleeping partner or an active one, as long as he is rich!)

There are however many government grants available today to the inventor who has a solid idea and a solid business plan. Next on the lists are venture capitalists and finally banks.

The other option available to the inventor is to sell his idea by way of licencs or assignments to others and let them develop and market the product. In this way, he is able to make some money by collecting either royalties or lump sum payments. In the process he may lose control over the future of the object of his invention, but you win a few, lose a few – right?

How To File A Patent Application

MOST people will stop from making that all-important step of filing a patent application either because their idea is too “strange”, they think it costs too much, or simply because they don’t know how.

To those hesitant inventors, here is some good news for you.

No idea is too strange. Patents have been applied for chewable chopsticks,
transparent greeting cards and “spring boots” for speed walking.
A patent application costs a few hundred ringgit if you do the application yourself. As for the last worry, this column is here to teach you how to apply for a patent.
Any person may make an application for a patent either alone or jointly with another.

Applying for a patent is a fairly simple process. The most important item of a patent application which you will have to prepare is the patent specification. The patent specification explains the invention in detail and defines the scope of the protection.

A patent specification consists of the following:

1. Title
2. Description of the invention
3. Claim or claims
4. Drawings (if necessary)
5. Abstract

The title usually describes the invention in a very concise form. There is no need to indentify all the fields of invention. Sometimes titles are sufficiently vague to avoid giving information to competitors in countries where the title can picked up before publication (Malaysia is one of them).

The description teaches the invention to the public.

The description and the drawings (if there are any) describe the invention.
It is drafted in detail and related to one or two preferred examples of the invention.
The description will usually have a general part which starts with the closest relevant prior art, goes on by mentioning how the invention improves on the shortcomings of the prior art and finally the invention itself.

Drawings are used to illustrate specific embodiments of the invention.

The claims define the monopoly upon which the public cannot infringe.
They are drafted in broad scope and the subsequent claims progressively narrow down the scope of the main claim.

The abstract is a condensed version of the technological information already covered in the description.

Drafting a patent specification is a highly skilled art as the writer must not only know the subject matter well but he must also clearly define what protection is being sought.
The contents of a patent specification can be the deciding factor when a patent infringement case goes to court. It is possible to prepare and file a patent application and to prosecute it through to grant of patent without professional assistance.
However, obtaining a commercially-useful patent requires a high level of expertise and anyone who is not thoroughly experienced in patent matters is advised to employ a patent agent.

The Role of A Patent Agent
The role of the patent agent is to provide professional services to inventors in respect of:
• advice relating to an invention in the pre-application phase;
• service and advice during the application phase; and
• representation and advice in the post-grant phase

Once the decision to file an application is made the patent agent’s services and advice is particularly useful in drafting the description and claims. It is the function of the claims of the patent application to define the scope of the protection of the monopoly being sought. The patent agent’s skill and experience are important to drafting claims to ensure that they protect the inventor’s rights by covering the invention in the broadest possible way.At the same time the claims must not be so broad that they cover anything which is already known or which does not work.

Published in the New Straits Times, Malaysia in 1993 under the coloum Patents Pending 

Patents and Intellectual Property

PATENTS come under the general heading of intellectual property. Intellectual property is the collective name given to legal rights which protect the fruits of a person’s intellect which can be an invention, a trademark, an artistic work or a design.

One of the earliest patents was granted in the Republic of Florence, Italy, way back in 1492. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution the concept of patents became an important means of encouraging industrial inventions and innovations.

What is a Patent?

Most inventors want to make money from their ideas or at least get them into use. “Can the A-bomb that I invented in my backyard be patented?”, shouts one inventor. “What do I do with my patent for a battery-operated stubble puller?”, cries another.

Patenting has never been an easy business but there is plenty to gain for those who have a first-class idea and who are determinated to make it happen – provided it is original in the first place. What exactly is a patent? Patents are documents conferred by the state upon the inventor which give him the exclusive right to exploit his invention in exchange for providing a full disclosure of his invention.

A patent gives to the owner of the patent the right to prevent others from making, using or selling the invention for as long as the patent remains in force, which in Malaysia is 15 years.The relevant bodies entrusted with the task of processing patent applications and granting patents are the Patents Board and the Patents Registration Office in the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Affairs.

Applications for a patent must be made at the Patents Registration Office and the patent application will be processed, examinated, approved or rejected on its own merits. If a patent application is successful a certificate of grant is issued.

An unsuccessful patent application does not mean that your idea stinks. It simply means that someone else beat you to it!

Inventors come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Thomas Edison was one of the more prolific inventors coming up with more than a thousand patented inventions before his death in 1831. Then there were the three Terengganu school-boys who invented what is probably the world’s first onion peeler which does the job perfectly minus the tears. Or businessman Anil Vora who specializes in mostly low-tech inventions, who has already come up with 100 inventions, including an easy-to suck baby bottle which prevents babies from burping too much and a non-flip umbrella which doesn’t flip inside out when blown by a gust of wind.

Examples of patented inventions are as varied as the inventors who think about them. They do not have to be as complicated as the jet engine which drives an air-craft. In Fact some of the simplest inventions are sometimes some of the most useful. One example is a button which may be secured to cloth without the necessity of using thread- the brainchild of three local inventors.

There is an unfortunate tendercy in the public mind to associate inventions with gadgets and gimmicks along the lines of the beer-making machine from the movie Young Einstein. However, virtually all machines, apparatus, products and processes across the industrial board are patentable provided that they satisfy three criteria: They must be new; in other words you cannot reinvent the wheel.

They must exhibit an inventive step, which means it would not have been obvious to a skilled man in that particular field.It must be industrially applicable which means there must be a use for it.

There are however certain categories of inventions that are unpatentable. They are scientific theories, mathematical methods, plant or animal varieties, business methods, methods of treating human or animal bodies by surgery or therapy and inventions which are contrary to public order and prejudicial to the interest and security of the nation.

Published in the New Straits Times, Malaysia in 1993 under the coloum Patents Pending