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HotAv
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Patent Advice – From One Who Knows
HotAV has recently been awarded a patent for its Timer chip, which is used in its unique Pay As You Go audio-visual systems, including LCD Projectors, P.A systems and plasma screens, to make sure customers only have to pay for what they use.
HotAV managing director, Dave Savage, explains: “We applied for the patent in 2002 so it took four years of going through the laborious patent process to finally obtain it on 26 January 2006. We produced a highly technical, 56 page legal document to support our application. Overall, the whole process was time consuming and very expensive.”
There are three basic criteria that a product needs to meet in order to apply for a patent:
- Useful (i.e. an inventive step)
- Novel (i.e. no prior art)
- Commercially viable
By obtaining the patent HotAV has its own intellectual property with 20 years’ protection, making it a real asset to the firm. It also has the patent pending in the USA and Canada, where it must meet all the same criteria.
Dave says: “If we manage to obtain the patent in the USA and Canada too, which could take 1 to 2 years, it will be an incredible boost to HotAV. Once you manage to obtain a patent in the UK, it is important to consider its potential applications further a field as well.”
Dave’s tips for applying for a patent are:
1) Once you have an idea, remember at all times that it is the core to everything. Your idea is your intellectual property, however, don’t tell anyone about it until you’ve filed for a patent. I would thoroughly recommend getting a professional attorney to file it for you to ensure protection.
2) If you have to share the idea with anyone, such as banks or engineers, make sure you get a non-disclosure agreement signed.
3) Put a lot of money aside. It’s a painfully slow and thorough process that can prove to be very expensive, but it is the only way to do it properly.
4) A final word of warning: don’t be surprised if someone has already thought of it! There are so many products out there that you will never encounter. Thousands of patents have been filed over the years, some of which have never been taken to market. You may devise the most efficient widget ever. You may research your market thoroughly and find that there is nothing like it available, only to discover that, when applying for the patent, Joe Bloggs obtained the patent for this widget 15 years ago but has done nothing with it. He still owns the rights to that widget for another 5 years so, until then, there is nothing you can do.
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