Inventors Corner

A patent confers upon its holder, for a limited period, the right to exclude others from exploiting (making, using, selling, importing) the patented invention, except with the consent of the owner of the patent.

A patent is a form of ‘industrial property’, which can be assigned, transferred, licensed or used by the owner.

Patents are territorial, in effect e.g. an Israeli patent is only valid in Israel.

It is essential for an inventor before spending too much time and money, to conduct what is known as a prior art search for an idea. The prior art search is done to make sure that you are the first person with the idea. The idea may be for a product, a process and/ or both. A good suggestion with respect to a product is that you start by going to the type of store or website that may eventually offer the product for sale. Other avenues include online library catalogs, IP catalogs for various jurisdictions or checking specialty catalogs that might be likely to carry a product idea such as yours. Other areas may be websites of companies or enthusiasts’ interest groups for example. If you do not find your idea at this initial stage or you find something that does something similar but you think your idea does it better then it may be time to do a preliminary prior art search which may include patents and/ or technical papers for example.

It is possible for an inventor to do a fairly good preliminary prior search themselves, even if the idea is a simple one or not. After a preliminary search it may be a good idea to have a professional patent search done by a Patent Agent before investing more fully your time, effort and money in an idea. The Patent Agent can play a very important role at this initial stage in consulting with you to help in finding out what may be patentable about your idea.