Filing Patents is often an important aspect for implementing an
intellectual property strategy for innovative companies. Patents
are however not the only way to protect an invention. In fact, in
some cases, filing a patent application is not recommended.
Indeed, a patent application is usually published 18 months
after filing (or the priority date), which means that all the
technical details and know-how described in it will become publicly
available. This simple fact may have important ramifications for
your business and will influence the way you protect your
innovation.
It also raises important questions, like: Do you really want to
give access to your competitors to the technical data and know-how
of your inventions or do you want to keep all this information
secret? Does it make sense to systematically file a patent for
every invention?
