Technical Intellectual Property Rights
Patents and utility models are technical intellectual property (IP) rights.
Technical intellectual property rights protect the technical features of an invention. To obtain such a right, those features of an invention that constitute the essential difference compared to the prior art - i.e., that limit the invention against established knowledge - must be elaborated and described.
The combination of these features must be novel, i.e., it must not have been known before.
The combination of these features must furthermore constitute an inventive step, meaning that, for a person skilled in the relevant filed, the invention would not have been obvious from the prior art.
Prior art
The prior art comprises any public knowledge. It comprises also the features that the applicant himself has disclosed prior to filing the application. This applies without any limitation to patents. For utility models, there exists one exception: The disclosure made by the applicant himself within six months before filing of the application is not taken into account as prior art.
A patent application must be filed at the patent office before an invention is publicly disclosed, as otherwise the invention will be included in the prior art against which the patent application is assessed.
Formulation of application documents
The features of the invention are described in the claims of the technical IP right.
It is important to limit the independent claim to the essential features constituting the actual invention. The features relating to details of the invention are described in subclaims, which refer to the independent claim. Listing all the features in the independent claim limits the scope of protection of the IP right too severely.
Patent
Grant procedure, period of protection
Patents are technical IP rights obtained by filing an application, whereupon the patent office conducts a search and an examination procedure. On completion of the latter, the patent office decides whether it grants a patent or not.
A patent remains valid for a maximum of 20 years provided the maintenance fees are paid.
Applications can be filed for national or regional patents. In the former case, the application is filed with the patent office of the relevant country and in the latter case the European Patent Office, for instance.
A further alternative is to file an international patent application (PCT application). On expiry of what is known at the international phase, this application may be processed by any designated national or regional office for the grant of national or regional patents.
The validity of a patent can be contested in an opposition procedure or in a nullity procedure; the validity of a utility model can be contested in a nullity procedure only.
Utility model
Registration procedure, period of protection
Utility models are non-examined IP rights that are registered as they were filed. Third parties may request their examination and routinely do so if rights deriving from the utility model are asserted against them. Utility model only protect inventions directed to devices, not processes or methods.
They are renewed by multiannual intervals up to a maximum duration of 10 years.
A special feature of German utility models is that the prior art does not include publications
- made during 6 months prior to the utility model filing date, provided that
- the publications are based on the work of the applicant or its legal predecessor.
In such a case, you can still obtain a technical IP right in the form of a utility model even if you have already disclosed an invention to a third party.
Our services
We should be happy to offer you advice on individual issues, including both the assessment of novelty/inventive step and the preparation and compilation of application documents. We also can assist you in checking whether a product or a method falls within the scope of protection of a technical IP right. This assessment is the so-called “freedom to operate (FTO)” assessment.
Furthermore, we can assist you in special fields of the patent right, such as the protection of computer-related inventions.