Patent rights limitations

Yet, over the years, there have been cases where patent owners have been found to have abused their patent rights in seeking to use the patent asset for more than its limited proper legal purpose. Attempts to extend a patent monopoly to cover unpatented goods, for example, have cast a cloud over the entire system. In today s environment of free enter-... 

The fundamental concept underlying patent protection is simple A patent allows its owner to prevent others from making commercial use of the patented invention without the owner s permission. The duration of this exclusive right is in general 20 years from the date of application. In the pharmaceutical field, an extension of up to 5 years is possible in many countries. For example in Europe, such an extension of the term is called a supplemental protection certificate and is granted on request, if the patent protects a medicament that is on the market. A patent is limited to the territory of the state granting said patent. 

Protein Patents and the Doctrine of Equivalents Limits on the Expansion of Patent Rights (Comment)... 

The patent literature consists of much more than granted patents. To obtain a patent, the owner of a new invention must file a patent application with a detailed disclosure of the method for making and using the invention. This disclosure, known as a specification, is published as part of a patent document. The specification contains a set of claims which are numbered sentences that set forth the limitations of the invention to be protected. Before patent rights are granted, a patent examiner reviews the claims to determine whether they meet the legal requirements for patentability, and a patent is granted only if one or more of the claims meets those... 

Those seeking to apply for a patent or to preserve the option to do so can minimize the risk of losing potential patent rights by being aware of actions that defeat patentability or that place a time limit on applying for a patent. Such actions include ... 

Fundamentally, a patent provides the right to exclude others from practicing the invention covered by (i.e., "claimed in") the patent. Enforcement of patents is limited both temporally and geographically. A patent can be enforced only against acts occurring during its term (158). Patent term is discussed in detail in Section 2.4 above. 

A further consideration is the differences in disclosure rules set by different countries, as discussed above under novelty. As has been discussed, if an invention is publicly disclosed before an application is hied, it may limit the countries in which patent protection may be sought. For example, once disclosure is made, an inventor may be barred from obtaining a patent in the United Kingdom. For this reason, disclosure should never occur before the decision about where patent rights will be sought, as patent applications themselves are a form of disclosure. 

In the past the United States fostered, encouraged, and protected participation of common individual inventors, but today regulations and environmental restraints severely limit individual citizens from experimentation irrespective of patent rights. 

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