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Patents involve more than just filing the right papers at the Patent Office. It also requires maintenance, and thus patent management is an important part of obtaining any patent. There’s a lot to consider, and a wide variety of skills can be helpful, such as technical, business, legal and management skills. Patents are often technical, so the most basic knowledge about the technology being patented. Legal and business skills will help can help you understand the process more, and allow you to find a way to increase the profitability of the company through the patents.
There are 300,000 patents filed with the US Patents and Trademarks Office (USPTO) each year and about 1/3 of those are granted. Most of these come from private companies and academic institutes. They follow more or less the same steps in patent, but will vary depending on how the invention was discovered or how it will be utilized.
Large, private companies, for example, will have in-house lawyers, or patent experts to start and continue the patent management process. One key step is determining the ownership of the patent and who will keep the profits generated from it. Some companies hire inventors (whether as a full-time employee or an outside consultant) to work for them, and it must be determined if the patent is owned by the inventor, the company or co-owned by both parties. Usually, such things are determined at the beginning of the contract, to prevent any further disputes in the future. Smaller companies who can’t afford in-house counsel can use patent management firms or license or purchase software for such purposes. If a company doesn’t have the necessary resources for patent management, they may have to prioritize which patents need to be maintained.
For academic institutions, the process of patent management is similar. However, instead of lawyers or software, a committee is formed to help analyze the situation at hand – how important the patent is (based on what it will be used for) and if it can be used for commercial purposes. Most of the time, if an institution has limited resources, it may need to decide if the patent management process is important at all.
Doing patent on your own can save you costs, but if you don’t have any experience in such processes, it may be wise to contract the services of a patent management firm. Such firms will take care of the entire process, and so you can concentrate on your business and doing what you know best.
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