Patents What They Are and How They Affect Your Business

1. PATENTS: WHAT THEY ARE AND HOW THEY AFFECT YOUR BUSINESS?

2. When you're building a business, the last thing you want to worry about is patent infringement. Unfortunately, startups are especially at risk of this — they're small businesses with low cash reserves and limited resources. So what can you do? Here's a complete guide to patents: what they are, how they affect your business (and not just in the context of startups), and how to avoid accidentally infringing on someone else's patents.

3. PATENTS ARE USED TO PROTECT YOUR INVENTION A patent is a document which gives you the exclusive right to make, use, and sell an invention for a limited period of time. If you don’t have a patent on your invention, then someone else can make, use, and sell the same invention without your permission.Patents are a way for companies and individuals to protect their intellectual property and lock others out of the market. When you buy a patent, you’re giving up some of your ownership rights in the invention until such time as you make or sell it, under the terms of the patent. There are two main categories of patents: Submitting a patent is basically like applying to university for a research grant, or applying for unemployment benefits (the government’s main approval method) in the US — you have to prove that you have the necessary resources to fund your project. To get patents, both startups and large corporations get paid a fee in return for committing to use their inventions for a limited period of time.

4. HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR BUSINESS WILL INFRINGE ON A PATENT? When you’re creating a business, there are a lot of decisions you have to make, and one of the most important decisions you’ll make is whether or not to infringe on a patent. Patents are usually granted on a U.S. federal level (with slightly different versions granted on a state-by-state basis), and two kinds exist: offensive and defensive patents. An offensive patent prohibits the use of a known or developed technology, known as a patent LEDik, as an infringement of another company’s patent. It does not protect the owner from being sued for patent infringement. Defensive patents can prevent others from infringing on your patent LEDik but still allows you to benefit from the technology — for example, an electric toothbrush with embedded GPS can’t be patented. These are known as non- assumption of risk patents. Once you decide to infringe, finding out if you infringed is the hardest part. Even if you have adequate legal counsel, proving you didn’t infringe a patent might be difficult — if you make a mistake in transcribing, or if the legitimate owner forgoes defensive patents on their patent, you could effectively open yourself up for potential lawsuits.

5. WHAT IS A PATENT AND HOW DOES IT WORK? A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for public disclosure of an invention. It provides the owner of a patent the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or importing the patented invention without permission. The crucial thing to understand is that the patent means nothing prevents you from making or using something that you find useful without getting an actual patent. It’s relatively easy to get patents. Typically, you have to make a good business case for why someone should pay you royalties. Then you wait for a month or two, maybe a year, until an inventor submits an application for the patent yourself. If you win, you can get 2–5 years for free. The downside is that, once an inventor has claimed an invention, no one else can make or use it without your permission (for obvious reasons). There are about 500,000 patent applications filed per day.

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