{"id":5102,"date":"2020-12-14T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T09:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/?p=5102"},"modified":"2020-08-15T14:27:08","modified_gmt":"2020-08-15T12:27:08","slug":"patent-law-in-a-nutshell-requirements-for-a-patent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/patent-law-in-a-nutshell-requirements-for-a-patent\/","title":{"rendered":"Patent law in a nutshell – requirements for a patent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anyone who founds an innovative start-up may have to apply for a patent\nto protect his ideas from imitators. Find out in the article which conditions\nmust be met to obtain a patent.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Swiss patent law is governed by the Federal Act on Patents for Inventions (PatA<\/a>) and the associated Ordinance on Patents for Inventions (PatV). An invention can concern a product (product patent) or a process (process patent). Inventions that meet the following three conditions are patentable (Art. 1 PatA<\/a>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invention is new<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an invention to be patentable, it must be new, i.e. it must not be\npart of the state of the art. Prior art is all knowledge that is publicly\navailable anywhere in the world before the patent is filed. This includes other\npatents, written publications and Internet publications as well as public\nlectures or exhibitions. Note: If an invention or parts of it are published\nbefore the patent application is filed, it is also considered to be publicly\navailable. It is therefore important to keep inventions secret until the patent\napplication is filed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depending on the country and patent office, this condition is\ninterpreted differently. In a famous decision, the Dutch patent court denied\npatentability of a method for recovering shipwrecks by balloon, because such an\nidea had already been published in a Donald Duck comic strip. Such curious\ndecisions are the exception, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invention is inventive<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An invention must also be truly inventive. What may sound banal is also\nan important prerequisite for patentability. In patent law it is said that an\ninvention must not be obvious to an average person skilled in the art from the\nprior art. If a person skilled in the art is asked, he or she must not easily\ncome up with the same solution as the invention for which a patent is applied\nfor. Otherwise the inventive aspect is missing and consequently the\npatentability is missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invention is industrially applicable<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An invention must also be susceptible of industrial application. This\nmeans it must be commercially usable, feasible and repeatable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For patentability to be granted, these three conditions must be met. In addition, there are a number of exceptions which exclude patentability (Art. 2 PatA<\/a>). For example, plants, animal breeds or processes for cloning human beings are not patentable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: The requirements (novelty & inventive step) are not examined\nin the Swiss grant procedure, the patent is granted without guarantee. However,\nthe patent can be challenged by third parties on the basis of the patentability\nrequirements, which leads to costly legal proceedings. It is therefore worth\nchecking for yourself before filing an application to see whether the\nrequirements are met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have any innovative business idea you would like to make come true? Use STARTUPS.CH experts to become self-employed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u00bb Blog<\/a>\u00bb Found online<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who founds an innovative start-up may have to apply for a patent to protect his ideas from imitators. Find out in the article which conditions must be met to obtain a patent. Swiss patent law is governed by the Federal Act on Patents for Inventions (PatA) and the associated Ordinance on Patents for Inventions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":672,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p54Pb1-1ki","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5104,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102\/revisions\/5104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}