PATENTS

PATENTS
In India, the Patents Act 1970 deals with the patenting of inventions The broad arrangement is as follows :
1. 2. 3. 4. A person claiming to be inventor, Applies to the Controller of Patents, for patent rights. The Controller checks the claim with respect to novelty and usefulness of the idea and other requirements of law. If the application is successful, the person gets a patent right for a certain number of years. During this period, no one can use the invention without authorization from the person.

Functioning of Patents Act

The Govt. of India has created the office of the Controller of Patents The head office is in Kolkata and there are branch offices at Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai. An application for the grant of patent can be made by an inventor or any other person to whom the inventor has given right The application is a detailed one and it requires the describing of the invention in all its aspects, including its newness, use and best method of performance.

Procedure on receipt of Application

The application is referred by the Controller to the Examiner The Examiner checks whether the application complies with the requirement of the Act. He also checks if invention has already been published or claimed by some other person The Examiner searches among the existing list of patents holders, in the register maintained in the patent office, to check whether the patent right is held by another person. The patent office , after the examination of the application, communicates its objections, if any to the applicant If the applicant is successful in removing the objections, the controller refuses to grant the patent to the applicant. If the applicant is successful in removing the objections, the controller advertises the application in the Official Gazette, this is towards the giving the opportunity to the public to raise objections to grant the patent. After the successful disposal of all objections, a patent is granted.

Rights of Patentee
A person in whose favor a patent is granted is called patentee. He can deal with the patent right like any other property. He can sell it to another person He can grant license to use the patented property to others He can also assign the such property to another person The patent holder has the exclusive right to make, use, exercise, sell or distribute the inventions in India Any use without license or other authorization from the patent holder, is an infringement. The patent holder can move the court to restrain the violator and claim damages.

penalties for patent infringement?

When a court or jury determines that someone has infringed anothers patent , the infringer can face several penalties. The general penalty is for the court to award damages to the patent owner, requiring the infringer to pay a certain amount of money to the patent owner.

 The primary part of financial damages which an infringer will have to pay is money to compensate the inventor for the infringers wrongful use of the patented invention. The specific amount, which can be determined by either a jury or the court, is typically calculated by figuring out what the infringer would have had to pay if he had legally licensed the invention, which is known as a royalty rate.

 Under special circumstances, the court can take this royalty amount and award triple the amount, known as treble damages. This is done where the infringer was found to act willfully, that is, knowing there was a patent in existence and infringing anyway. The reason treble damages are awarded, giving the patent owner three times what he is entitled to, is to act as a deterrent to infringers.

 someone could find out about a patent and infringe thinking that one of two things happens - they do not get caught, or they get caught and simply pay what they would have paid as a royalty anyway. In addition to the money intended to compensate the patent owner, the infringer is also likely to be required to pay interest on the money owed as well as the patent owners court costs (not his attorneys fees but, rather, things like the money spent filing documents with the court).

 Finally, separate and apart from any financial award, the court will often issue an injunction, which is an order that the infringer stop infringing the patent and never do so in the future.

What can be patented?

Utility patents protect inventions that are a novel, nonobvious, and useful: Process
Machine Article of manufacture Composition of matter Or an improvement of any of the above items.

Most patents are for incremental improvements in known technology; the innovation is evolution rather than revolution.