Patents: To Invent and Protect
1. General Guide to PATENT Protection
Patent Protection
A new idea is great but an invention is better, especially if you're looking for potential patent protection for your new product or service.
This guide will outline the main considerations and requirements for valid patent protection and the different types of patent applications.
2. Requirements for PATENT Protection
The Requirements
For an invention to be eligible for valid patent protection, it needs to tick a few boxes:
- It needs to be new and cannot have been publicly disclosed anywhere else in the world.
- It needs to involve an inventive step. That is, based on publicly available sources of information such as the internet, journals, magazines, other patent documents and even common general knowledge, would it be obvious for someone to use any available information and create the same invention?
- It must be a manner of manufacture. Your invention needs to offer a tangible and useful advantage.
The above requirements are if you are looking to obtain standard patent protection.
3. Prior art searching
Searching
Have you done any homework in and around your idea?
A general Google search is a great place to start to see if there are any existing products or potential competitors out there.
A basic patent search is also helpful to see what other people have proposed and possibly protected in your area of interest.
The Google Patents database (https://patents.google.com) is free to access and you can view and download published patent documents from around the world. It works in the same way a normal Google search does, enter keywords or names relevant to your invention.
A general or formal patent search will provide you with a snapshot of the area of interest for your idea or invention. It does not guarantee that you will obtain patent protection or avoid infringing someone else's existing rights.
4. Types of patent applications
Provisional Patent Application
In the early stages of development of your invention? You might consider a provisional application in the first instance.
A provisional application is not published or examined for the above validity requirements. It’s effectively a placeholder to provide you with time to make some commercially informed decisions about your invention.
For example, the purpose or benefits of filing a provisional application can include:
- Obtaining the all important filing (priority) date means that you can disclose and sell your product after filing. This disclosure won’t affect your chances of obtaining patent protection down the track. If you disclose before filing, you may not be eligible for patent protection later on.
- You have up to 12 months to determine if your invention is worth further investment of time and money to pursue patent protection. Within this period, you might find the majority of interest and sales is resides here in Australia. Or you might find there is increasing interest for export to overseas markets.
- Depending on business plans, you can then determine whether to file for a patent protection here in Australia only or keep your options open for patent protection overseas.
For a provisional patent application, we advise clients to budget for approx. AU$7,000-$10,000 + GST.
5. Types of Patent applications
Complete/PCT Applications
At the end of the 12-month provisional period outlined above, you may opt to file complete patent applications directly into the countries of interest to you.
Filing complete applications means you will need to have clear idea of the markets of interest, as you will not be able to file a valid application beyond the 12-month date. For example, if you opt to file a complete application in Australia only, you won’t be able to file into other countries at a later date.
The alternative is to consider filing a PCT application. The PCT route helps to buy you a further 18-19 months to consider which countries you want to pursue patent protection in. It can also help delay the significant costs associated with “national phase” into each of those countries of interest.
Not all countries are members of the PCT, so you may still need to file complete applications into those particular countries.
For a PCT patent application, we advise clients to budget for approx. AU$12,000-$15,000 + GST.
6. Standard application timeline
Standard Patent Application Process
7. PCT Application Timeline
PCT Patent Application Process