Patents

A patent gives its owner a legal right to exclude others from making, using and selling their invention in a given country or region for a limited period of time , in exchange for publicly sharing their knowledge about the invention.

The patent right is based on a patent specification that describes the invention and includes a set of claims that defines the scope of monopoly protection being sought. The claims are a series of statements setting out the minimum features or steps of the invention in a clear and concise manner. Your Madderns patent attorney has the combined legal and technical skills to both understand your technology in depth and based on this understanding then define your invention in a manner that broadly captures the essential features of your invention.

Importantly, the claimed invention must be new at the time of filing – therefore any earlier publication or public use (including commercial use) of the invention prior to filing will normally prevent valid patent protection. There are limited exceptions to the above general rule so if you have publicised your invention in any manner then please seek immediate advice from one of our patent attorneys.

Sometime after filing a patent application, it will be examined by a Patent Examiner and, in most cases, one or more reports will issue raising objections. Each report must be dealt with for the application to be accepted and the patent granted. Dealing with these examination reports is one of the important roles of your patent attorney (along with drafting of the patent specification). Your patent attorney’s task is to ensure that the scope of monopoly protection of your patent is not overly narrowed by the examination process.

It is important to remember that a patent does not guarantee commercial success; a great amount of work is needed to take an idea from concept to the marketplace. Inadequate attention to effective business planning can lead to commercial failure of the invention, regardless of the strength of the patent.