VPB 321: Animal Biotechnology (2+1)

PATENTS

• Patents, also referred to as patents for invention, are the most widespread means of protecting the rights of inventors. Simply put, a patent is the right granted to an inventor by a State, or by a regional office acting for several States, which allows the inventor to exclude anyone else from commercially exploiting his invention for a limited period, generally 20 years.
• By granting an exclusive right, patents provide incentives to individuals, offering them recognition for their creativity and material reward for their marketable inventions. These incentives encourage innovation, which in turn contributes to the continuing enhancement of the quality of human life.
• In return for the exclusive right, the inventor must adequately disclose the patented invention to the public, so that others can gain the new knowledge and can further develop the technology.
• The disclosure of the invention is thus an essential consideration in any patent granting procedure. The patent system is so designed as to balance the interests of inventors and the interests of the general public.
• The word patent, or letters patent, also denotes the document issued by the relevant government authority. In order to obtain a patent for an invention, the inventor, or the entity he works for, submits an application to the national or regional patent office.
• In the application the inventor must describe the invention in detail and compare it with previous existing technologies in the same field in order to demonstrate its newness.