Patent protections length

Marketing exclusivity in Europe is linked to patent protection. Extensions are possible through grants of supplementary protection certificates (SPCs), which are comparable to U.S. patent term restorations and have the same maximum length of five years beyond the original expiration date. However, there are several important differences in the European SPC system. SPC extensions apply to any and all approved forms of a product (e.g., salts and metabolites) protected by... 

Thus, if we consider that some sort of protection is necessary, the problem is to find out how to establish it in such a way that the alteration of incentives and of the level of competition is manageable. One of the key issues in achieving this is the length and scope of the patent. 

Thus, we see that the protection of innovation by means of patents affects the costs of innovating in both directions. However, these costs are also affected by the length of the patent. A long protection period increases the reward for the innovator, and encourages his or her activity. Given that many developments are cumulative, some subsequent innovations depending on their predecessors, the result is increased costs for the remainder or a restriction in terms of time. 

If a new patent act changes the patent statutes, its impact on trade secrets should be considered as to length of protection, costs, and effectiveness of protection. 

Each country has its own laws for patents, which means it is important to remember that countries differ in the length of protection time given the name used for the term patent and even about what can be patented. In the United States, patents are sometimes known as utility patents, but note that some countries provide utility models which are similar to patents, but are not as inventive and which also have a shorter protection period. Utility patents are also called petty patents (or Gebrauchsmustern in German). In the UK, it is neither possible to patent a new plant or animal, nor a method of treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy or a method of diagnosis. However, this is not the case in all countries e.g., in the United States, plants can be patented. 

Effective patent life In this report, the length of time during which a new chemical entity is formally protected from generic competition by patent or other statutory market exclusivity provision. 

Information that has value because it is not generally known (e,g, business and technical, patentable and nonpatentable) can be protected as a trade secret against discovery by improper means or through breach of confidence. To be protected as a trade secret, the information must in fact be "secret" (i.e., not generally knovm by the industry). The duration of a trade secret is the length of time the information is kept secret. Public disclosure of the information by the trade secret owner or anyone else results in the loss of the protection offered by the trade secret. 

Patents are one of a class of intellectual property rights i.e. rights to intangible property. These are patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and seeds. Each right differs from the others primarily in the type of property it protects, how it is obtained, and the length of protection ... 

Patent litigation is also important. Companies go to great lengths to protect their intellectual property and infringement penalties are high. In 2008, there were 2,909 patent suits filed [6]. 

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