Is Filing For Patents Difficult?

Every inventor today wants protection for his work. So, filing for patents is what is being done every other day. The important question is that all those who file for patents get them? The answer is 'no'. The reason is that not everyone who thinks he has got a patentable product is right.

To get a patent you should have invented something that was not there before or must have improved on something to the extent that it functions in a way never conceived of before. In other words, you should have brought something to the world and not remolded what was already there in the world.

The novelty is the key. So, if you have just made a coffee kettle a little more user friendly, it is not going to get you a patent. However, if you have made an ordinary coffee kettle into a kettle that keeps your coffee warm by using atmospheric energy, you would certainly get a patent on it. Now, on what do you get a patent? On the kettle? Or on the coffee brewing inside? You would get a patent on the technology used to use atmospheric energy in place of regular electricity to keep coffee warm in the kettle.

So, anybody who uses that particular technology in whatever way would pay you a royalty to use the technology. The technology may not be used to warm a coffee but to warm water. The person might use the technology to warm water, but he still pays because though the object in which it is used is different and also the purpose but the technology remains the same. Therefore, so long as this person uses what you have invented, he has to keep paying. If someone comes up with a different way of using the atmospheric energy, he too can get it patented. This technology should not simply be a little improvement of your technology but must be entirely different, or the improvement should be such that it could be called an overhaul of your technology. A complete revamping of a process may also sometimes get a patent if this refinement could not have been thought of as an extension of the existing technology. So, you should have found of a new way of doing the old thing to get a patent. The coffee was warmed and was warmed in pot before your kettle came. Energy in some form was used. It was either coal or electricity. And you kettle too keeps the coffee warm and uses energy. The difference is that it uses atmospheric energy and you would get a patent on it. Filing for patents is not all that difficult. Just get a lawyer and you can have your product or technology or process patented easily.