A patent provides exclusive rights for an invention granted by intellectual property offices in different jurisdictions. An invention can be a product or a process that creates a new way of doing something or offers a new technical solution to a problem.
Any inventions, whether products or processes, can have patent protection. The invention can be from any field of technology. But it must be new, involve an inventive step and be capable of industrial application.
Patent registration grants its owners the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention. After the issue of a patent, the patent owner is able to enforce its patent rights against others.
A patent confers on its owner the following exclusive rights:
(a) where the subject matter of a patent is a product, to prevent third parties not having the owner’s consent from the acts of: making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing for these purposes that product;
(b) where the subject matter of a patent is a process, to prevent third parties not having the owner’s consent from the act of using the process, and from the acts of: using, offering for sale, selling, or importing for these purposes at least the product obtained directly by that process.
Patent owners also have the right to assign, or transfer by succession, the patent and to conclude licensing contracts.
