Patent Engineering

Chapter 9

Patent Engineering in a Global Economy

Thus far in this book we have discussed the first three key steps in the patent engineering process—identifying important problems, mapping a portfolio of patents to “own the problems” and efficiently generating these patent applications. These steps define what patents you want to file. Now that you have decided what to file, you have to decide where to file, and why. As you are about to discover, these decisions can be among the most time consuming and potentially expensive decisions that you will face in the patent engineering process.

No patent will block your competitors around the entire world. While there is an international patent application, there is no international patent. The most any one patent will cover is a group of closely related countries, such as the 38 member countries participating in the European Patent Convention [1]. There is also the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization [2] (ARIPO) consisting of 19 African countries and the Gulf Cooperation Council Patent Office [3] (GCCPO) consisting of 6 Gulf states. A “jurisdiction” is the geographical reach of any particular patent office. It should be noted that patents granted through these organizations are not centrally enforceable. Rather, assertions have to be conducted in the individual countries under the laws of those countries in which the owner of the patents wishes to recover damages. To own the problem effectively, consider patent coverage ...