Patent pending, Patents granted, intellectual property rights, trademarks – these are familiar terms in business but what are the implications of being granted a Patent?
A Patent confers on the owner legal rights to ownership; a trademark is a recognisable sign, design or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source from those from other sources.
Fundamentally a Patent is a form of protection. It can be for design or utility, for how something appears or for what it does.
Clearly for businesses, owning a Patent can be a make or break element in determining how they survive and grow, or indeed whether they can in fact survive at all.
Wayne Langford, a UK-based water management consultant, has recently acquired the US Patent rights for his porous paving system, Sudscape.
“My company already had the UK and South African Patents to Sudscape,” Wayne explains, “but it was a crucial component in our plans that we should be able to acquire the US Patent rights too.”
Having recently taken back the assets and rights of his original Sudscape Company, and also bought out the assets of Eden Paving, Wayne Langford wanted to consolidate the porous paving market under one company, Sudscape Technology Ltd (STL).
“The US Patents shows our commitment to sustainable water management systems.” Wayne continues. “It covers all recyclable materials used with a stone resin topping as demonstrated by the Sudscape system.”
This shows our commitment to environmentally-friendly water management and sustainable drainage solutions both in the UK and across the world.”
As well as providing legal protection to businesses, being granted a Patent is a valuable asset in seeking investment for further expansion. The message to investors is loud and clear: the business has the Patent for the markets in which it operates or where it wishes to expand, it is protected and bolstered by these rights.
A Patent is crucial in that it grants the owner the right to exclude others from making, selling, using or importing the patented invention.
More realistically it confers on the owner the right to attempt to assert this right in court. In this sense it is as much as deterrent as a form of protection.
