Patents and Utility Models
Patents and utility models provide their owner with a privilege – limited in time and space – to solely use or dispose of the invention. The patent allows for drawing economic profit for instance from licenses. The patent proprietor can prohibit the unauthorized use of the patent.
Patents play a critical part in entrepreneurial decision-making. Patent searches serve for avoiding unnecessary development efforts. Moreover, they prevent infringement of third-party patents and utility models and thus frequently avoid severe economic consequences.
The number of patents and patent applications of a company is indicative of its innovation and potential. Patents portfolios thus can be a crucial aspect in assessing a company.
Precondition of a strong patent or utility model is a close cooperation between inventor and patent attorney. For this reason we take a lot of our time to identify the gist of the invention and put it in abstract terms to come up with the optimum wording for the patent application.
Our central activities in the field of patent law concern besides patent drafting and representation before the patent offices the consultancy in issues of the German Employee Invention Act contract matters such as licensing or transfer of technical protective rights and of course representation in litigation matters.
>>Consultancy example for patents and utility models – patent prosecution
We work for a plurality of DAX and MDAX enterprises in the field of so-called "patent prosecution". The patent departments of these companies provide us with invention disclosures and, if available, results from their own novelty searches. Upon viewing the documents we discuss the invention disclosures with the inventors. In our patent application drafts we consider further developments that have occurred since disclosure of the invention or more concrete details with regard to the embodiment chosen for series production. Through this exchange with the inventors the scope of the individual invention can be gauged and an appropriate demarcation against the established prior art can be devised.
During the examination proceedings we prepare responses to office actions for these companies, who usually file them through their patent departments with the patent offices. In the case of hearings or oral proceedings, for instance in appeal or opposition proceedings, we attend the appointments.
For supporting the enterprises in their budget planning we also offer fixed rates for drafting patent applications.
Annually our office drafts some 2000 new applications, thus providing for ever-growing expertise in the field of "patent prosecution" to the benefit of our clients.