In celebration of World IP Day on 26th April, Lesley Evans, Chief Executive of major European intellectual property firm, Haseltine Lake, reflects on how global IP systems are supporting and encouraging innovation.
The UK has a strong reputation throughout the world for many types of technology and innovation including precision engineering, medtech, software and renewable energy. It is vitally important that the legal systems in place to support Intellectual Property are effective to enable innovation in these sectors, allowing high-tech businesses to compete in global markets without the fear of copying and infringement.
The problem of course is that there is no unified global IP system – each country operates a separate system with its own rules, procedures and time frames, and in some cases even with different IP rights. In most jurisdictions you see some form of protection for patents, designs, trademarks and copyright. These different forms of intellectual property enable people and businesses to differentiate their ideas, protect their innovation and secure financial benefit from what they invent or create. And whilst these protections have many local differences around the world, they have sufficient similarities to enable inventors and creators operating in any one mainstream system to have a broad understanding of how similar rights may work elsewhere.
One form of IP right which can be relevant in the Technology Transfer sector and which is perhaps less well known and understood internationally is the Utility Model. This is an exclusive right granted for a specific invention, allowing the inventor to prevent others from copying or infringement for a specified period of time. It’s a sort of mini-patent, but of shorter duration (typically 10 years) and generally with less stringent patentability criteria to be met than for a conventional patent. This means that they are usually easier, quicker, and cheaper to apply for.
Utility Models (sometimes also known as utility patents) are often sought in respect of smaller incremental changes or developments affecting quite narrow aspects of technology capability, particularly where there is the likelihood of fast moving or frequently changing technology issues in the development of the product.
The drawback is that the Utility Model is not as widely available as patents and other IP rights and indeed is not available in the UK, the USA or within the European Patent System. It is however available in a number of other countries including Germany, Italy, Japan and China (including Hong Kong). A number of Western businesses are starting to evaluate the use of Utility Models in China as a way to gain faster cheaper IP protection in the challenging market. Depending on where in the world businesses are innovating, manufacturing or distributing, the utility model may have a place alongside other better-know IP rights to improve a company’s web of protection.
A form of Utility Model known as the “Innovation Patent” was recently introduced in Australia, as a result of extensive research there into the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. The stated aim is to provide a ‘low-cost entry point’ into the intellectual property system. This illustrates the way in which IP systems throughout the world continue to develop and evolve.
As we celebrate World IP Day, we can perhaps feel reassured that IP rights continue to change in line with changing innovation landscapes and also that the enforcement of the well- established IP rights of patents, trademarks and designs is becoming stronger, more consistent and more closely aligned across the developed world than ever before.
For more information about IP, please visit: www.haseltinelake.com.
ENDS
About Haseltine Lake:
Haseltine Lake is a major European Intellectual Property practice, offering top quality technical and legal advice across the full spectrum of IP rights and issues around the world.
Haseltine Lake enjoys long-standing, closely integrated relationships with its clients, based on trust, transparency and flexibility.
Founded in 1850, Haseltine Lake has offices in four key European locations - London, Munich, Bristol and The Hague – and provides IP services to clients across the globe through its well-established network of high calibre Patent and Trade Mark Attorney partner firms.