IP Development

You do. We can help develop solutions which incorporate unique features, applicable to intellectual property registration. You, as the paying client, own the intellectual property of any feature or mechanism which we develop. Where ‘inventor citation’ is required for the Patent Office, we sign an IP transfer document which means that you own, outright, any IP which is integrated into your product. This allows you to exploit, maintain or transfer any IP without recourse to consultation with us. This includes Patents, Design Registrations, Trade Secrets and Trademarks.

The ownership of patents not only gives market Kudos, and confidence to potential investors, but can also open opportunity for government backed schemes like The Patent Box. This scheme can provide tax breaks for companies investing in R&D. We can advise on whether your products are applicable to this scheme, and also develop unique IP which can open routes to additional financial benefits.

It typically takes 2 years from the start of the process until the patent is granted, though it can be shorter or longer than this depending on the findings of the Patent Office, or objections to the Patent from third parrties.

The typical process is as follows:-

1. Use on-line tools such as (Google Patents or Espacenet) to see if your idea is novel and hasn’t been invented already.
2. Discuss the idea with a patent attorney and they can perform an in-depth search with tools that aren’t readily available to the public.
3. Prepare the images needed for the patent, typically this will be multi-view line drawings or key features.
4. The patent attorney will draw up the patent capturing the key claims and novelties rerquired.
5. The patent is then filed with the IPO.
6. Sometimes the IPO will initially reject the application, this is where a patent attorney earns their money. They will either argue the case of all of the claims in the patent or amend them to make the patent unique, this can often take several iterations.
7. Once the IPO agree the patent is unique, it will get published and other parties have 12 months to object to the patent.
8. If their is no objection to the patent it is then granted.

The cost of a patent can vary, but typically it is in the range of £6,000 – £10,000. As we have a close relationship with some patent attorneys we can sometimes offer a fixed priced patent for £6,500.