So, let's say you come up with the next big item that will revolutionize the world, like a device that could teleport individuals from one location to another. Then, you decide to commercially manufacture and promote the product. You create a business and do the same thing. Your friend buys your goods, conducts some reverse engineering, and launches his own business. He begins to offer your product as well, but with a different brand. And already you are broken as a result of market competition and the number of people who are replicating your goods. You ask yourself, "Where did I go wrong to change my good fortune into bad luck?"
The answer is simple. You failed to patent your invention! If only you patented the product, neither anybody else nor your neighbor could have copied and used it.
What is a patent?
A patent is a legal document that assigns ownership of an invention to its creator. It goes over the specifics of the concept, paying close attention to the finer points that distinguish the creation. A patent will not be granted if the invention is not distinctive or when the innovation is not well-described. So, a patent is a title that grants you product claims and marks the product as yours, preventing others from using your innovation without your authorization.
A concept is not patentable, but an invention is. This implies that you file your innovation with a patent office as well as have exclusive rights to market it in the patent office's nation for a set length of time (this usually spans twenty years). One can provide other individuals (or companies) permission to produce and distribute the item in question in exchange for a price. You might also resell the patent to another business.
The entire point of a patent is that you have spent effort and time inventing anything for which there is a market, and as a result, you are entitled to compensation.
Google Patents: What it is
Google Patents is a patent application search engine developed by Google.
Google Patents records over 87 million patent applications and patents from 17 offices for patents, with full text. Each database's complete set of granted patents and released patent applications are included in these publications (which belong to the public domain).
Patent documents in the United States originate from 1790, while EPO, as well as WIPO documents, date from 1978. On the earlier US patents, optical character recognition (OCR) was utilized to make data discoverable, and Google Translate was used on every non-English patent to create the English translations discoverable.
Google Patents additionally indexes materials from Google Books and Google Scholar and has machine-classified them for searching using Cooperative Patent Classification codes. The search engine also has patent litigation information thanks to cooperation with Darts-IP, a worldwide patent litigation registry.
Background of Google Patents
On December 14th, 2006, the service was introduced. Google has explained that it employs similar technology to Google Books, thereby, allowing users to browse through web pages and zoom in on certain parts. PNG files can be saved from the images.
The European Patent Office (EPO) and the Prior Art Finder feature were added to Google Patents in 2012. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the German Patent Office (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt, DPMA), the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), and China's National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) were added to the list in 2013. All international patents were as well translated and made findable in English.
A recent version of patents.google.com was launched in 2015, with a redesigned user interface, Google Scholar integration, machine-classified Cooperative Patent Classifications (CPCs), and search result grouping into CPCs.
In 2016, it was announced that 11 more patent offices would be covered. Support for the USPTO and EPO boolean search syntax (title/abstract/claims fields proximity, wildcards) was added. This was done along with visual graphs of CPCs, inventors, and assignees by date, a thumbnail grid view of search results, and CSV downloads.
Global litigation information was introduced in 2018. Google Patents pages show whether a patent (or a member of its family) has been sued anywhere else in the globe, as well as a link to the Darts-IP patent cases database.
Frequently Asked Questions about Google Patents
If you want to know more about Google Patents and how it works, take a look at the answers to these frequently asked questions.
What do Google Patents do?
Google Patents indeed is a fantastic interface that makes reading and searching for patents a breeze. It is more user-friendly than any patent office's user interface.
There is, however, a significant issue regarding Google patents. In general, It has been noticed that Google Patents have waited many weeks or even months to include the most current patents. It is supposed that Google is aware of the issue and that they should work to close the gap.
Is Google Patent a reliable resource?
Google includes a patent query that displays information from the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) and WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). You may search directly on the USPTO as well as WIPO websites. Optionally, you can get details about patents via the Google Patents website.
The Google website is trustworthy because it gathers patent information straight from the WIPO and USPTO websites. People who have sought patent protection for their innovations can see awarded patents and pending patent applications on the USPTO and WIPO websites. The USPTO site is where most patent searches are conducted because it displays patents the same day they are awarded and published to the public.
The citation of Google patents depends. For example, when you quote a single patent, such as US 9,8767,321, you do so directly (with title, inventors, iPatent No., etc.).
If you quote other information, such as legal status, which can only be accessed on the Web page, you must reference the Website page.
What does “legal events” mean in terms of the patent as displayed in Google Patents
A patent's 'Legal Events' section provides a chronological summary of all legal activities related to the patent. Assignment of patent rights to another party, payments of the maintenance charge by the client, and specifics of patent litigation are all examples of legal activity. As a result, Google Patents' Legal Events category is a valuable resource.
What is ‘FP status’ in Google Patents?
In the status section, FP means "Expired owing to failure to pay maintenance charge". To keep a patent active, patent owners must pay fees after a few years. If the charges are not deposited promptly, the patent will become invalid and so unenforceable.
How often is the Google Patents database updated?
As noted earlier, it has been noticed that current or newer patents take a while – as long as weeks or months – before they are updated on Google Patents. It is supposed that Google is aware of the issue and work to close the gap is ongoing.
What is the amount of time it takes for one patent to appear on Google Patents after it is filed?
It is important to note that the applicant might also submit a request with the USPTO for non-publication. Furthermore, patent applications relating to specific themes (for example, defense inventions) might take longer to complete through the first approval procedure or may never be released at all as a result of security concerns (115-Review of Applications for National Security and Property Rights Issues).
Whereas Google Patents contains data on many patent filings, some documents may never be published, even if they were filed over 18 months ago. So, if you're looking for information on someone else's filings for liberty to operate analysis, take in mind the possibility of unpublished applications.
Does a Google patent document contain all necessary information about the invention?
For retrieving application publications and patents that have been issued, Google Patents is sufficient. However, there are some restrictions to Google Patents, such as the file wrapper (i.e., prosecution documents) as well as certifications of rectification not being successfully communicated to Google Patents.
As a result, Google Patents seems to be more useful than exhaustive. Depending on the questions you're trying to answer (for example, "what subject matter might have been relinquished through arguments made in prosecution?"), the information on Google Patents may or may not contain every one of the information you have to answer the issue logically. For a deeper dig into the reference you're looking at, Google Patents includes an excellent set of links to Espacenet, the USPTO, and other sources of information.
Conclusion
Google Patents is wonderful for searching for specific patents or engines. With Google Patents, you can now use SQL to answer an even broader set of questions with these datasets, such as "what percentage of patents have more than one inventor?" or "what funding does the government provide to promote innovation in certain patent areas?" Policy analysts, academics, and economists pose questions like these to learn more about how the patent system works and how it may be improved.
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