What are some things everyone should know about patent law?

1. The patent laws of every country are unique. When asking questions about patent law, be sure to specify which country(ies) you are planning to file in.

2. Patent law of full of tricky (and ever-changing) traps that can trip up the un-informed, rendering it likely that if you prepare and file an application yourself, in the event you DO manage to obtain a patent, the scope is likely to be so narrow that the financial worth of such a patent is almost always negligible. so my advice is to ALWAYS use an experienced patent attorney or patent agent to prepare your application. Also remember, that an answer on Quora that may have been correct when written, may be incorrect when you read it, due to the fact that laws and regulations (and how they are interpreted) change over time… sometimes dramatically. Another reason to choose to hire a professional rather than rely on what you read on Quora. At most, we can give you an idea of questions to ask your attorney.

3. Patents are expensive to get, and EVEN MORE expensive to enforce. If you can’t afford to utilize an experienced patent attorney or agent to prepare and file your application, you are extremely unlikely to be able to afford bringing a patent infringement lawsuit.

4. The VAST majority of patents (even professionally prepared ones) cost more to obtain than they ever make for their owner so think long and hard about whether or not it make financial sense to expend the time, money, and attention required to obtain a patent. Maybe expending those resources on additional engineering, marketing, etc. would make better sense, business-wise. Consult experienced professionals. Definitely do some market research and patent searching to see how your invention fits into the existing state of the art and marketplace prior to expending large sums of money seeking a patent.

5. There are different kids of patents (at least in the US): (1)Utility patents which protect new, useful, and non-obvious (and legally protectable) inventions in the form of processes, machines, manufacture, or composition , or any new, useful and non-obvious improvement thereof; (2) Design patents which protect new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture; and (3) Plant patents which protects asexually reproducing distinct and new varieties of plants, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state. These types of patents are NOT interchangeable - and scammers will often charge an arm and a leg to help you "develop" and "patent" your invention - only to obtain a relatively easy to get design patent (very narrow protection on ornamental (non-functional) aspects of your design)on your behalf… when what they should have sought to protect your invention is the difficult to get Utility patent which would actually protect an INVENTION.

6. Consider whether or not infringement of your invention CAN be detected (how would you be able to tell if a machine in a factory is programmed with your innovative algorithm to make parts more inexpensively to make a part, when you don't have access to the factory, and even if you could, your may not be able to read the programming burned into the chips governing it's operation). And if you CAN tell that your invention is being infringed, how much will it cost you to monitor the market to detect that infringement? Will you have to buy examples of expensive equipment and tear it down to see if there is infringement? And if there wasn't, will that be true a couple of years later when that company opens up a new assembly line?

7. Patents are not the same as copyright, and are not the same as trademarks. Each is a separate form of protection for a different type of intellectual property. Please learn the difference, and use the correct terminology, so that people don’t waste time answering the question you asked, instead of the question you meant to ask.

If you want to know more about it then click on the link:- https://www.law.uw.edu/news-events/news/2022/legal-tips-patents#:~:text=Patents%20have%20a%20positive%20effect,They%20also%20protect%20intellectual%20property.