Inventors: Are you sure?

“Each one of us is a Born Inventor”. One needs Observational skills and curious mind to invent than just procuring Academic degrees. ‘Newton’ observed apple falling due to gravity, the observation which was ignored by other people around. Apart from curiosity of the mind, sometimes necessity also becomes the reason of invention. Here also, only thing required is realization of the problem and attitude to find solution of the problem. One small idea can actually make the Inventor, a ‘big’ Entrepreneur irrespective of the age of the Inventor. As the IP awareness is increasing globally, every individual inventor is getting aware of the importance of their rights for protecting their intangible property of intellect/idea legally. Such protection is well known by term of ‘Patents’. It is often seen that as the Inventor comes up with an innovative solution, he/she rushes to Patent Office or Patent Agent for filing patent application therefor. However, there are many check points before the inventor proceeds for filing the patent application. One very important check point is to know if the idea to file for patent rights is novel (new). If the idea is not novel or claimed properly, the idea cannot be granted patent rights. The fact is that one needs to invest one’s personal savings (in case of the individual inventors) for filing the patent application until- and post- grant. Such investment involves paying official fees at Patent Office and Professional Fees of Patent Attorneys/Agents. If the Inventor has not ensured novelty of his/her idea, his investment therein may actually go waste. Even when the Patent Agent interviews the inventor, the Patent Agent may charge the inventor as per hour basis. So, it is very important for the Inventor to at least conduct a quick preliminary search by himself/herself before approaching the Patent Agent. The Inventor can search free databases such as Google Patents or Google. Anything related more or less may actually hinder the novelty of the idea. Such a quick step can actually guide the inventor at first instance that if his idea is novel or not. This would also guide the inventor to know problems still unsolved by the existing solutions or any cons of the existing solutions or any clue to improve his/her idea further. In a nutshell, the quick exercise of search would not only give him the confidence for his idea but also a plan for claiming his idea for patent rights. One miss of the existing prior art may actually lead to wastage of the Inventor’s investment. Hence, the searching also needs to be performed very carefully. After getting assurance of the novelty of the idea, the Inventor should now approach to the Patent Agent or Patent Consultant/Analyst. The Patent Agent or Analyst would now conduct in-depth search for utilizing different strategies and permutations or combinations to determine novelty of the different key features/elements of the invention. This step is very crucial as it decides which features of the invention can be claimed. Neha Goyal, Founder of Ideas2Patents, India has 13 years of experience in providing patent services to various Patent Attorneys and Inventors globally. She is actively working for Individual Inventors worldwide to develop and brainstorm their ideas along with IP education thereto, providing special support thereto by getting prototypes developed as the individual Inventors do not have labs to develop their small ideas.