Business brief 2011: UK
Patents
How do you register or secure patent rights, and is national or international coverage most appropriate?
To secure a UK patent, applicants can apply to the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) or to the European Patent Office (EPO) designating the UK.
Both IPO and EPO applications must include a full description of the invention (including any drawings), a set of claims defining the invention and a short abstract summarising the technical features of the invention.
Whether applicants should register their rights nationally or internationally depends on where they want to enforce their patent and on how much money they want to spend on the registration process. Applicants should always register in their key markets.
International protection may be sought via the EPO (for European countries) or under the Patents Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system.
What are the costs for registering a patent, and what are the costs of defending it?
UK IPO
Already registered?
Login to your account
If you don't have a login or your access has expired, you will need to purchase a subscription to gain access to this article, including all our online content.
For more information on individual annual subscriptions for full paid access and corporate subscription options please contact us.
To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.
For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk