Are patents boring?
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Are patents boring? Video Transcript
The question I am going to answer for you right now is are patents boring. In my view, they certainly are not, but I will tell there are some that believe that they are so. Patents are very complicated legal documents. They are a hybrid of engineering, business and law and, adding to that fact, many patent attorneys like myself are not the most exciting and charismatic people in the world. So, you know, people have a misconception of the profession and patents in general. But many, once patents are issued, highly treasure and value their merit. Patents create incentives for invention. They create incentives for creative minds to help humanity by securing a limited monopoly right in exchange for a disclosure of their invention to the whole world, and that is a patent application. A patent application is a disclosure of an idea to the whole world and once the patent issues, that monopoly right is secured and the inventor or the owning party has the opportunity to take that idea that is helping improve society and the world and make money with that for a short amount of time in exchange for that public disclosure. So it creates innovation. Studies show that countries have developed patent systems have the most innovation, have the most new businesses, have the most new products, and it is an incentive structure that helps create that. So in my view, patents are not boring. They are complicated and it is actually fascinating to learn about all the different aspects of patents for me and many others. What is important though, is there is a bit of a gap between the engineering, law and business sides of things. Engineers expect patents to be almost sometimes technical papers that they are not. They are actually legal documents that carve the boundaries of an invention. They have technical subject matter. One needs to understand the technology well to write a patent application. But at the end of the day, they are used for stopping others from practicing an invention and they are used to create that limited monopoly right. So patents are complicated because they are hybrids of engineering and law. They are complicated because they are also a hybrid of business. It is very important to understand who the end product is going to be sold to, who are potential competitors to the end product, what are their perspectives and how best to draft claims to show that infringement. So at the end of the day, patents are clouded by all these technical and legal complications that make it sometimes seem boring. But in my view, they certainly are not, they are exciting documents and ones that help to create innovation and keep moving our country forward and the world forward for a better tomorrow.