Before applying for a patent, many people have already published the patent content, or have published it on the company's WeChat***official** and the company's promotional materials
As we all know, patent granting requires that the technical solution itself has novelty and inventiveness, and the so-called novelty means that at the time of the patent application, the patent is the latest in the world and has never been done before. Obviously, the content that has been published externally, whether it is the release of ** or ** WeChat public account, corporate promotional materials, etc., even if the public speech has become part of the public knowledge of mankind, and it is obviously not novel to apply for a patent again.
However, there are several exceptions:
1) Technical exchanges within a small circle of privacy, such as the company's internal magazine, are strictly forbidden to be circulated to the outside worldInternal speech discussion;Circle of friends with limited reading privileges;Where it is clearly confidential information that is not disclosed to the public, it is tacitly assumed that it does not affect the novelty.
2) Public publication that is difficult to leave a trace, such as deleting it immediately after it is published on the company's official website on WeChat.
As for whether it can be granted if it can be granted after it is publicly published, the measurement criterion is: if any person can view the published information and has left written evidence, it should not be authorized to apply for a patent at this time, and even if it is authorized, it is very easy to be declared invalid.
Case] A company has developed an environmental protection sewage treatment product, which fills the technical gap at home and abroad, and the sales are very hotIf a peer comes to plagiarize and imitate, and also begins to produce and sell similar products, the company will sue for patent infringement. Unexpectedly, the lawsuit had not yet been fought, and the patent was declared invalid by the patent office first. Why?
It turned out that after the company developed environmental protection sewage treatment products, it was very happy to announce the good news on its official website, and announced the product's first and basic performance and innovation on the websiteIt took two days for the technical department to contact the patent firm to file a patent applicationAfter the competitor learned about it, they immediately notarized and collected evidence of the content of their company, and submitted a patent invalidation application to the patent office, and finally the patent office declared the patent invalid on the grounds that the patent had lost its novelty in the prior disclosure.
In order to avoid the situation that the patent is invalidated due to the disclosure of the patent first, it is recommended that the company do the following two things:
1) After the completion of technology research and development, the first time to consider applying for a patent, and then consider publication, public exhibition, market publicity, etc.;
2) When an enterprise discloses the technical information related to a patented product, it should be reviewed by the patent counsel or an external patent attorney before releasing it to the public, so that it is truly foolproof.