Patents provide an inventor the authority to prevent others from making use of his or her invention for their own commercial advantage through illegal means. They allow the inventor to prosecute a person or company for trying to make such illegal use of the product or the process. However, there are a few aspects that need to be kept in mind before resorting to legal action against a patent infringement.
Firstly, you must ensure that there has been a complete and perceptible infringement of your product secured by patent. In other words, it must infringe all the essential aspects of your original product. Although in special cases where some of the aspects of the product have not been imitated, it can still be considered as an infringement. However, this requires strong evidence to the effect that there are substantial similarities and that the final effect that the infringing product creates is significantly similar to the genuine product.
Secondly, you should have some legal interest in the patented product to be able to sue the infringer, and you should not be an unrelated party. You can either be the sole owner of the patented product or a licensee – exclusive or partial – of the product to be able to file a suit for violation. You also need to consider the law of limitation of the jurisdiction and take legal action within the time stipulated for such suits, as otherwise the claim would be treated as invalid.
Although you can proceed against not only the producer of the infringing product but also against the person who uses the product, any such step can be taken only while the patent lasts. Once the period of patent expires, no legal action can be taken against any infringement.
Finally, you must also keep in mind that patents can be used for research purposes without it being labelled as an act of infringement even though the law of patent is based on the principle of strict liability.
Discover more about Trademarks and learn how does an Patents protection increase the net worth of your business very fast.
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