WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS IN AN IP POLICY

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS IN AN IP POLICY:

• Policy Statement  
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• Objectives  
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• Scope  
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• Explanation on the types of IP Rights  
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• Ownership  
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• Works of Employees  
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• Works of Non-Employees  
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• Subsidiaries and Joint Venture Companies  
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• Undergraduate and Postgraduate research students (for university)  
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• Disclosure of inventions to the organization or employer 
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• Incentives, Award and Reward Schemes, Royalties 
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• Commercial development 
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• Employee & Visitor Obligations 
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• Agreements with third parties 
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• Improvement Patents 
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• First Right of Refusal 
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• Administration
  

WHY AN IP POLICY?

IP (Intellectual Property) POLICY:

• Ensure only novel projects in R & D are carried out (i.e. not re-inventing the wheel)
   
• Ensure that novel projects in R & D are not infringing third party's right
   
• Facilitate recording of R & D findings
   
• Examine patentability or alternative IP protection
   
• Determine inventorship and ownership of inventions
   
• Determine authorship and ownership of a work
   
• To clarify the respective legal rights and obligations of employers, employees and third parties
   
• Determine reward and award schemes - to seek to strike an equitable and practical balance between creators, originators, inventors and employers’ interests
   
• Provide IP data base - to encourage dissemination of knowledge by organizations for its commercial benefits
   
• To encourage conducive environment in which R & D culture will flourish within organizations
  
  To acknowledge moral rights of originators, creators, inventors and designers, and their rights to participate in decision making on commercialization along with dissemination of information developed by them.

What is Patent??

What is a Patent? A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor or applicant for a limited amount of time (normally 20 years from the filing date). It is a legal document defining ownership of a particular area of new technology. Patents are Granted in over 150 countries and are predicated on the theory that inventors are more likely to invent and disclose that knowledge to the public in exchange for a limited period of exclusivity. The right granted by a patent excludes all others from making, using, or selling an invention or products made by an invented process. What is Patentable? To gain a valid Patent the invention must be new (novel), involve an inventive step or be non-obvious, and be capable of industrial application. Some countries have specific exclusions preventing things from being patented such as the making of nuclear bombs. What does new mean? An invention is considered new if it does not form part of the state of the art. What is the State of the Art? The state of the art comprises everything that is known or used in public in any way, anywhere in the world, before the date of filing of the patent application. What is inventive Step? An invention is considered as involving an inventive step if it is not obvious to a skilled person having regard to the state of the art. Industrial applicability: The invention must be capable of being made or used in some kind of industry, including agriculture. Generally, it does not include one-offs. Excluded Subject Matters: Many countries have specific exclusions to certain inventions such as the patenting of plants and animals or the patenting of scientific theories. As long as the above criteria are met the United States has very few exclusions to patentability.