What is the effect of an international patent application?

The PCT is an international treaty with more than 145 Contracting States. The PCT makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in a large number of countries by filing a single “international” patent application instead of filing several separate national or regional patent applications. The granting of patents remains under the control of the national or regional patent Offices in what is called the...

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Intellectual Property Rights Pros and Cons

Your company’s name, logo and even your products belong, well, to your company. In a perfect world, that’s how things would remain. These are all forms of intellectual property – you own the rights to that property (intellectual property rights). However, this is far from a perfect world. A quick look at the number of lawsuits revolving around IPR should highlight just how easily one company can infringe on another’s rights, even unintentionally. It...

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How important is intellectual property protection for a startup?

If you could obtain a patent, that would be a great place to start and you should definitely pursue that. A patent would basically grant you a monopoly on the technology and let you exclude others from using it, or at least they would have to pay you for such use. But, assuming there is no patentable technology like you said, any other intellectual property right  (IP) may or may not be worth it. It really would depend on your...

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