Why should a patent application be entrusted to an agency?

As we all know, patent applications can generally be processed in two ways:

One is to log on to the official website of the State Patent Office, or personally go to the window of the State Patent Office in Beijing to handle it;

The second is to entrust a formal agency to help them apply.

So how do companies or individuals choose between these two types of patent applications? Before the U.S. patent in the "individuals can also apply for trademarks, why also need to entrust an agency" article detailed the reasons and benefits of trademark applications to find an agency, today's small editor to analyze the need for patent applications and find the reasons and benefits of agency applications!

The need to apply for a patent

Patent is one of the most important intellectual property rights, patent can make enterprises occupy a favorable position in the fierce market competition, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, a good patent is enough to make it invincible in the market. At the same time, patent rights as a property can be traded in the market, the critical period can also become a life-saving straw for enterprises!

There is fierce competition in the market economy. Shopping malls are like battlefields. Everyone knows that everyone wants their products to occupy the market. To achieve this goal, they must apply for patents for their inventions in time so that their inventions can be protected by national laws. Otherwise, anyone can use your inventions and creations, and anyone can imitate your products, losing the opportunity to occupy the market. In addition, if your own invention and creation do not apply for a patent in time, other people will take your labor achievements as their own after knowing your invention and creation, and apply for a patent for your achievements. When you get the patent right, you will be sued by the court or the patent administration agency for infringement of the patent right, so that the original inventor's labor achievements cannot be used or implemented, and the original inventor will be in a passive position of being beaten.

Therefore, enterprises should encourage employees to create inventions and encourage patent applications, which can promote the upgrading of products, improve the technical content of products, improve the quality of products, reduce costs, and make the products of enterprises invincible in the market competition. Therefore, whether it is an enterprise or an individual, when there is an invention, please apply for a patent as soon as possible and strive for national legal protection.

In short, the benefits of applying for a patent can be summarized as the following seven points, but they are definitely not limited to these seven points

1. Exclusive market;

2. Prevent others from imitating new technologies and new products developed by the enterprise;

3. The patented technology can be sold (transferred) as a commodity;

4, to avoid being preempted by others to apply for a patent;

5, patent publicity effect is good, is conducive to the shaping of corporate image;

6, monopoly market, to some extent, this is also a kind of protection for enterprises in the cruel market competition;

7, some patents can also get government support and capital increase, loans and other aspects of preferential treatment.

It can be seen that after having your own patent, the first thing to do is to apply for a patent. There are two ways to apply for a patent, which has been mentioned at the beginning of the article. Arguably, the inventor must know his own technology better than the agent, and there is no problem in applying for it himself. Then why is the number of patent agency applications increasing every year?

According to incomplete statistics, there are mainly the following reasons:

1 The writing of patent application materials is more professional and has zero errors. Although patent applicants know their own technology better than their agents, they often have no experience in writing application materials and are prone to errors or imperfect writing, resulting in repeated correction in the later period. This affects the application process. However, professional agents, because they have undergone professional training, passed the relevant national examinations, and have been engaged in related writing work for a long time, will not have the above problems and will never affect the patent application process. PS patent application documents include invention patent request, abstract, abstract drawings (when applicable), description, claims, description drawings (when applicable), each in duplicate.

Secondly, as far as the applicant is concerned that the agent cannot fully understand his own "technical" problems, it basically does not exist.

Because agents are also divided into "industries", in addition to the fact that they are basically experts in the industry, they will study and learn a lot of technical materials invented before writing the technology, and communicate with the inventor many times, and eventually the technology will be presented in the best state. Give your "technology" to put on a gorgeous dress, let the patent application more smoothly!

Therefore, the problem you are worried about is simply So easy for our professional patent agents, especially for the patent agents of Nanjing Hua Xun US patent. These are not problems. If you don't believe me, call 400-823-1116 to ask if what the US patent says is true.

Many people have a misunderstanding about applying for a patent, believing that all materials from the beginning to the end of the patent application are confidential. However, there is a core principle of patent application: "publicity for protection", that is to say, all application documents will eventually be presented to the public, and anyone can access it.

When many inventors write their own patented technology, either because they are not clear about this principle, they fully disclose their core secrets in the application materials. In addition to causing their own protection scope to be too narrow, it is easy for anyone to imitate; or because Knowing this principle, it unnecessarily hides its own technology too much, resulting in the final patent not being able to obtain the right, or obtaining the right does not have any protective effect.

Therefore, the writing of application materials is a technical job. What can be written, what cannot be written, and what is written more and less, all need to grasp the scale. Therefore, when writing application materials, experienced agents will not only blur some core data and steps, but also expand the scope of protection of claims as much as possible to maximize the interests of applicants.

The patent application lasted for a long time, and the failure to monitor the application process in time led to the withdrawal of the patent. The two points mentioned above were the work before the patent application was submitted. The really important thing is still to come!

Although the speed of patent examination has been accelerated, the time for patent application is still relatively long, especially the average time for invention patents is one and a half to two years.

However, utility models and exterior designs are fine, and the examination process is not so complicated, but the application for an invention patent will go through the stages of formal examination, disclosure, substantive examination, issuance of examination opinions, etc. For example, in the disclosure stage, if the patent is not offered to be disclosed in advance, it will not be disclosed until 18 months later. After the disclosure, the substantive examination also requires the applicant to take the initiative to propose, otherwise the patent examination will always be on hold.

Ordinary individuals/enterprises either do not know these regulations or do not have the energy to monitor the application process all the time, because there are not a few cases in which patents are regarded as withdrawn. If you entrust a patent agency, none of these things will happen.

4 The reply to the examination opinion is not timely, and the patent is facing invalidation. In the process of substantive examination, if the examiner thinks there is something wrong with the patent, the examination opinion will be issued. This review opinion needs to be answered within the specified time. If the reply is not timely, the patent will only be invalid. Since many companies or individuals are not clear about these regulations, there are not a few examples of patent invalidation due to untimely responses. Moreover, the frequency of issuance of examination opinions is not only related to the technology itself, but also closely related to the quality of patent materials writing, which further proves that the application materials need to be written by professionals, such as senior patent application experts of Nanjing Huaxun US patent.

In addition, unlike trademarks, patents do not directly wait for the issuance of certificates after authorization. The State Council will first issue the "Notice of Patent Authorization" and the "Notice of Registration and Printing". In addition to telling the applicant that the patent is authorized, the applicant is asked to pay for the certificate. If you miss it, the hard-earned patent will be invalid. Over the years, there have been many cases in which the patent has been granted but the applicant does not know about it and has not handed over the registration fee. But if you entrust an agency, you don't have to worry about these issues.

If the patent certificate is issued, do you think everything will be fine? Too young too simple, patents still have to be protected for ten or twenty years. These ten or twenty years have to be paid every year! Year! Fee! Many companies once forgot to pay the annual fee and caused the loss of patent rights, so many companies chose to entrust agencies to avoid similar situations.

In addition, if the technology is too good, or for other reasons, others can apply for invalidation of the patent. However, individuals or general enterprises do not have the energy and professional knowledge to deal with litigation. To the agency, also can avoid worries.

The most important thing is that if the applicant applies for it himself, all the notices issued by the State Knowledge Bureau in the later period will be sent to the address left by the applicant when he originally applied for the patent, who can guarantee that he will not move and the address of the enterprise will not change for such a long time? And most of these notices are time-sensitive, and if they are missed, they will cause huge losses.