Patents give you the right to stop others from making/selling something it covers. So, if you’re innovating in a fast-paced tech environment, then patents may, in fact, be the only way you can stay ahead of your competitors, and stop them from profiting from your innovation.
Steppingstones
When we think about the fast-paced digital age, and how quickly that tech environment has progressed in the last 25 years, it might seem pointless to apply for patents for technology that might have been superseded by the time they are granted. But, when you think about each invention as a “steppingstone” to the next, if you have protected each steppingstone, it will allow you to stop your competitors from suing the same steppingstones to get to ‘the next best thing’. And this is, in effect, at least one of the reasons that the biggest players in the tech arena view patents as so very important.
Mobile phones
Consider Apple and Samsung, for example and, in particular, their interest in the mobile phone market. New, upgraded versions of their mobile phones are regularly unveiled, and the improvements that each new version claims in relation to the last are, on the whole, quite ‘small’, but, let’s face it, these improvements sell, and at quite a high price!
So, the last thing the mobile phone manufacturer wants is for their direct competitors’ phones to be able to offer the same improvements, invariably at a lower price (because they won’t have had to bear the r&d costs).
Of course, by the time the relevant patents are granted, that version of the mobile phone may well have been superseded by the next (or even several) versions, but often their job has already been done, to a large extent as they will have given the patent owner a head start with the latest version of their technology; and they also continue to allow their owner to prevent their competitors from incorporating those high-value features into their own phones, and prevent them from being able to use them as “steppingstones” to ‘the next best thing’.
This is, of course, a simplistic explanation using a form of technology that pretty much everyone is familiar with, but the same theory holds true across most, if not all, technological arenas, and that is, put simply, an answer to ‘why are patents important in a technological environment?’
Need Help?
We hope you have found this summary useful. If you need help to work out where your most valuable IP is, and how to protect it, or if you have any other IP questions, we are happy to offer a confidential initial consultation, which is free of charge and obligation. Please book your free initial consultation by clicking the link below:
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