Patents

We are experienced in patenting coatings and coating application solutions and we offer this service through our attorney partners.

A patent is a government licence conferring a right or title to an invention for a set period of time for the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling your invention.

In summary, the patent process is as follows:

The start of a UK patent registration system is the filing of the patent application at the UK Intellectual Property Office.

After filing, what is called a novelty search has to be completed. This official search is designed to discover earlier documents which might describe the invention. In other words, your invention might have been invented by someone before you.

A search request must be filed at the UK Intellectual Property Office within twelve months of the date of filing the original patent application.

An Intellectual Property Office examiner will search through selected publications and will produce a list considered to be relevant to the potential patent application of the claimed invention. The search usually takes about six months to complete.

A patent application is automatically published approximately eighteen months after the filing date of the original patent application.

Within six months of publication it is necessary to request the Intellectual Property Office to carry out a substantive examination of the application.

Examination can be requested earlier if required. During examination the specification and the results of the novelty search will be reviewed. Any objections to granting the patent will be reported.

These objections must be overcome by argument and / or amendment of the specification before a patent can be obtained.

In the UK there is no opposition procedure for third parties to challenge the patent, but they can draw relevant material to the attention of the examiner before the patent is granted.

Once the examiner is satisfied that all objections have been overcome, the application is accepted and a patent is subsequently granted.

Typically this can be four to five years from the date of filing.

Subject to payment of annual renewal fees, the term of a patent is twenty years from its initial filing date.

The whole patent process is quite slow as you can see, but then Blocksil is going to be here for a long time.