It is very easy to make assumptions about who owns intellectual property you, your employees and others create, but it is not always as straightforward as you might think. So, in our latest blog, we look at who owns IP? First owner of IP In the UK, the first owner of...
This is yet another frequently asked question. Intellectual Property (e.g. patents, designs, trade marks, etc) is an asset, i.e. property, just like physical property, such as a house or car. So, it follows that IP can be sold or ‘rented’ (i.e. licensed)...
what is patent searching? I recently wrote about the new patent search tool launched by the UKIPO (see our blog for more information), which obviously recognises the importance to innovators and R&D teams (amongst others) of effective patent searching. On the back...
The patent process in the UK (and most other countries) is relatively long (usually around 3 years), and there are various deadline-driven stages and procedures that need to be followed. To the uninitiated, this process can seem complex and laborious, so in this blog...
I am often asked ‘are patents expensive?’ or ‘why do patents cost so much…?’. We tend to think of things as ‘expensive’ if we deem the cost to be more than the perceived value we receive in return. So, patents are really only ‘expensive’ if the true value of it...
This is another question I get asked a lot: are patents global? Is there a worldwide patent? Are patents worldwide? etc. The simple answer to these questions is ‘no’. The longer answer is that each country (or territory consisting of a number of countries)...
