Latest IP News and Updates

Patents are recognized as a valuable source of information due to the disclosure of technical and scientific information in them. An essential purpose of the patent system is to deliver information to the public. The patent system allows legal and technological information to be delivered to the populace. Legal information include  publishing details of patented material , the legal scope, publication countries, assignees, and when it passes into the public domain. Technological information, such as a patent’s so-called ‘teaching’ or technical disclosure, which is required to give a skilled reader all the information needed to put the new technology into practical effect.

Patents play a crucial role in protecting ones IP rights. A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides, in general, a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem. When a company or individual launches a product in a new market particularly in technology sectors where there is extensive patenting, there is a high risk that commercialization may be blocked by a competitor who holds a patent for a technology used in that product. If this scenario comes to fruition, then the infringing party might suffer huge financial losses, for example they could be asked to stop the launch or to compensate the patent holder. Freedom to operate is the capacity to operate in a given jurisdiction without infringing on another’s intellectual property rights.