A patent gives you a competitive advantage. It can safeguard a newly developed product against copying and help generate a better financial return.

You can use patents to prevent other individuals or companies exploiting your inventions. By protecting your products in this way, you will be able to sell them without having to compete with other suppliers for up to 20 years.

When a patent has been granted, the period of protection is retrospective, counting from the date of application. This deters anyone from copying a product that is the subject of a patent application, as doing so may result in liability for damages should the application be successful. By indicating clearly on the product that a patent has been applied for, an important competitive advantage can be gained as soon as the application has been submitted.

Inventions vary greatly. They may be highly sophisticated, or as simple as a paper clip. What they share in common is a technical solution that can be exploited financially. Patents are granted not only for technical innovations, but also for systems, methods and substances.

For a patent to be granted, the invention should not have previously been in the public domain. For example, it should not have appeared in brochures, magazines, newspapers or patent documents. If the invention has not been publicly disclosed outside the company, it is usually considered to be new.

The idea must also be an invention in the legal sense, possessing ’inventive merit’. This means being substantially different from anything currently on the market. It does not have to contain new components, as long as the arrangement of the known components is sufficiently original.