Patents

New apparatus, machines, products and working methods can be protected by patent, which guarantees the possibility of prohibiting others from counterfeiting the patent's object.

Such a patent protects the invention and describes, possibly by means of drawings, very clearly what the inventor wishes to protect.

An invention can be protected by patent on the following conditions:

• the invention has to be new ;
• it has to show an inventive step, i.e. it must have a new effect ;
• it has to be susceptible to industrial exploitation.

Patents can be applied for in three ways, namely :

• By filing a national patent application, for example a Belgian patent application
• by filing a regional patent application, for example a European patent application;
• by filing an international patent application.

In order to draw up such a patent application, with full knowledge of facts, and to go through the necessary administrative formalities on the right moment, so as to obtain a full protection, preferably, one should appeal to a patent attorney.

The patent attorney has had the advantage of a technical university education and is the official link between the inventor and the official patent administrations, either national, regional (e.g. European) or international.

Apart from drawing up and filing patent applications, the patent attorney will be able to conduct searches among the patent literature and to give advice during the granting procedure, in case of counterfeiting and court actions, when drawing up licences, and the like.