How to patent an idea

If you have a new idea in mind that you want to carry out as a business or brand, you must patent it as soon as possible to make it known officially and have full authorship of it when patenting it. Patent an idea also your invention to be stolen by third parties for commercial purposes.

In a patent there are always three figures who are responsible for the creation of an invention. Generally there is the inventor or creator of the idea, who can only be a person and not a company. Then there is the applicant, who is the owner of the patent and can be both a company and a natural person. And the third would be the figure of the representative. The representative is the person who will represent the applicant when requesting that patent from the patent and trademark office. He is the one who pays the fees, does the administrative processes, but is not the owner of the patent.

How to patent an idea

An idea can be patented if it meets the following requirements:

1. Novelty. The idea must be new and must not have been disclosed in any way and anywhere in the world prior to the application date.

2. Inventive activity. An idea is inventive if based on the closest disclosure, the idea is not obvious to a person skilled in the art.

3. Industrial application. An idea has industrial application if it can be implemented in any type of industry or manufactured by any type of industry.

If these three requirements are met, then the idea is patentable. An idea can be protected by the utility registry or through the registration of a patent. Both registries offer the same right to their holder, which is a exclusive right both at the manufacturing level and at the sales level.

In other words, if you protect your idea, you will have an exclusive right that will prevent third parties from manufacturing or selling whatever it is that you have protected in Spain, regardless of where it was manufactured.

How to patent an idea in Spain

In Spain there are two public bodies that take care of the steps so that you can patent your idea.

– The General Registry of Intellectual Property. It depends on the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. It is responsible for interfering in the official recognition of all industrial property rights on patents and utility models, distinctive signs and designs. It intervenes in the Intellectual Property rights over literary and artistic works, as we will see below.

– The Spanish Patent Office Trademarks (OEPM) are responsible for processing patents and contacting companies to present the project idea to them in order to obtain their respective license. Here we leave you its web page so that you can access to obtain more information about it.

How much does it cost to patent an idea in Spain

To be able to patent an idea in Spain, the cost in fees to the OEPM is about 792.88 euros. As long as the patent does not have deficiencies and if it is granted by the general procedure. And around € 1,186.55 if the procedure is used with a previous exam. In the case of presenting a utility model, the application would cost around € 100.

How to apply for a patent: the step-by-step process

Every patent filing process begins with a request. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office must fill out a series of documents, a form and pay the corresponding fees. This request must contain:

– One qualification

– A brief summary with the novelties what the patent will bring

– Drawings clarifications in case they are necessary

– A memory that contains the problem that it solves and the solution that arises from the patent

– And most importantly: claims, which are the specific technical characteristics that are novel and on which we are requesting protection.

How long does it take to process a patent?

It takes a patent to be published, in the best of cases, in a period between 12 and 18 months from when your application is filed until your grant is delivered.

How to internationalize a patent from Spain

When it comes to internationalizing a patent, we must be very clear about the concept of priority. The owner of a patent who has registered it in a certain country has a 12-month priority right to internationalize his patent in other countries.

To internationalize a patent, the registration process is similar to that of registering a patent at the national level. A form must be filled out with all the information required and related to the patent to be examined and published. If after the publication and evaluation process there is no third party that opposes it and the National Office approves it, then the trademark is granted for a period of 10 years, with the possibility of an extension.

Being a process very expensive, implies taking into account a very important factor, which is the evaluation of the competition and the market that we have in the countries where we want to patent our brand or idea, in order to evaluate if there is nothing similar in the country where we are going to patent the brand to our product. We can do all this with a market study.

Summary: 6 different ways to patent an idea or something specific

1. National patent. It includes industrial machinery, manufacturing processes, recipes, etc. That is, everything that can be manufactured with its resources and processes. The duration that a patent with protection can have is 20 years at the national level, with the advantage of extending one year of protection at the international level. Your application number begins by prepending the letter P for Patent, followed by an enumeration.

2. Utility model. It is used to protect products or physical accessories in which we are improving something already existing or giving it a new utility. The duration of this license is 10 years. The first year also has a year of international protection. Utility models can also be licensed. Your application number begins with the letter U, for Utility, followed by an enumeration that is unique, that is, there cannot be two utility models with the same identical number.

3. Industrial design. This type of model is much more focused on the world of design and aesthetics. We are talking about products that are already invented, but if the aesthetics are changed, the commercialization is changed, since it is an innovation that would attract more attention from the industry. This model only allows to protect the aesthetics or appearance of a product. An example of an industrial design would be a piece of furniture. A chair may not be an improvement contribution, but its design, being new and peculiar, would require protection of the industrial design. The same would happen with the design of a new shoe, a new typeface, etc. The duration of protection is 5 years with an extension of up to 25 years maximum. This model can also be licensed and its application number begins with the design D followed again by a unique and exclusive enumeration assigned by the Patent and Trademark Office.

4. Registration as a trademark. What it protects is a word or a logo that helps differentiate your product or your services from those of others. An example of this licensing model is the word mark, it only protects one word, such as Decathlon. Then it would be like the graphic brand, protecting only the brand logo, such as the M for McDonald’s, the crocodile for Lacoste, etc. And the most common is that it is a written brand, that is, both the logo and the graphic design are protected. Sounds can also be protected as long as there is a staff on which the sounds related to the mark appear. The duration of this trademark is 10 years and can be extended indefinitely, and the application number begins with the M for Trademark, and followed by the single enumeration.

There is one very important thing to keep in mind and that is that there is a type of trademark that will never be accepted by the Patent and Trademark Office and they are the generic names (Roberto, Laura, Anastasia …) And geographical names are not accepted either, since that it is not possible to patent Alicante, San Sebastián, Malaga, etc.

5. Tradename. They are less well known and what they allow us is to differentiate a company in its commercial use. It is the name or brand that represents a company and each company has several different products or services. The duration of protection for this model is also 10 years, with the option to extend it indefinitely. An important fact to keep in mind is that trade names cannot be licensed. They can be licensed if they are linked to the company, but as a percentage they cannot be licensed.

6. Copyright. Which idea is patented with the most copyright? Well, those artistic creations. We would be talking about when someone writes a book, a song, a movie, a play, but also a database or computer programs, of course. The duration of copyright is the lifetime of the author plus 70 years after his death.

Something curious about the duration of protection of this model is that there are many countries that say that it is not necessary to register it or protect it as copyright, since when you do the work, it is no longer necessary to register it because it is supposed to be yours, but it is highly recommended to register it as this avoids future confusion.

This model can be licensed. In this case we would be talking about economic rights. A copyright has the moral rights, as that is the work of the author / creator. And then there are the economic rights, that is, the benefits that are passed on when you allow another individual to use what you have created.