A Personal and Flexible Service to Inventors, based on Experience

DETAILS

Preliminary Commercial Assessment
We will provide a critical appraisal of your idea/invention and this will assess its viability and commercial potential. Constructive, creative, and sometimes destructive, comments, will be made, in order to give you useful and intelligent feedback so that you stand the best chance of success, or are advised early on, to avoid wasting time, effort and money.

Patenting
If assessment shows that it is worth pursuing further, protection of the invention by filing a patent application is essential. A patent application is a document which contains a technical description of an invention, in words and diagrams (known as the specification) written so that an expert in the field of the invention can reproduce it.

The specification is filed in the name of the Applicant, at the Patent Office, and is given a priority date and a number and, once filed, causes a metaphorical "clock" to start ticking, in that, at the very latest, i.e. after 12 months have elapsed since the priority date, certain decisions have to be made as to whether or not the application is to go forward for Examination, Publication and, hopefully, Grant.

At this "year up since first filing", time, the Applicant also has to decide whether or not he or she, wishes to obtain international patent protection, for which, official fees have to be paid.

A UK patent application establishes, for the inventor, certain rights in relation to patent protection abroad, provided that these rights are taken up within one year from the date of first filing the application in the UK.

Once a patent application has been filed, the inventor can continue to exploit the invention knowing that there is potential for world-wide patent protection. If, by the end of the year since first filing the application, things have not progressed sufficiently, the application can be left to "die in the system" and it will remain secret.

Alternatively, if things have progressed, it may be worth paying for patent cover in various countries. The choice, and number, of countries, will be dictated by the nature of your invention and by how much you can afford. If you have a "backer", they may be prepared to bear the cost in return for being able to manufacture, sell, and use, the invention, under license from you.

A granted UK patent can remain in force for up to twenty years, provided that annual renewal fees are paid.

It is important to note that even when you obtain a Patent on an invention, as much as four and a half years since filing the first application, someone could challenge it!

HOWEVER, IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED THAT, WITHOUT A PATENT APPLICATION ON FILE AT THE PATENT OFFICE, YOU HAVE NO OFFICIAL PROTECTION FOR YOUR INVENTION. THE FILED APPLICATION SHOULD THUS BE CONSIDERED AS AN ESSENTIAL EXPEDIENT WHILST YOU ARE COMMUNICATING WITH THIRD PARTIES TO GAIN INTEREST IN YOUR INVENTION.

Patent Searches - The Search for Prior Art

General Factors The commercial appraisal does not involve detailed patent searches, but a quick search can be done for possible conflicting prior art. The results of this search will not necessarily confirm whether or not your idea/invention is already known, but if the search does reveal something which is similar to your invention, it could certainly show that you do not have a patentable invention. A more thorough search can be undertaken when working on an idea or invention as a project, and an estimate for the cost of any such searches can be provided for the inventor, beforehand.

The Patent Pipeline One will not learn of any patent application that has just been filed, and therefore placed in the so-called "Patent Pipeline", until it is published, 18 months from its date of first filing. Published patent applications emerge from the "Patent Pipeline", every day, and, in attempting to determine if there is any similar, so-called, "prior art" which could pre-date yours, 18 months would have to elapse, measured from your priority date, in order to be absolutely certain that sufficient time had been allowed for all competing patent applications to have emerged from the "Pipeline".

Development
There is a natural eagerness for the inventor to want to get on with the "commercial contact side" of exploitation of an invention but every inventor with whom we have worked will agree that their invention changed considerably after contact with us.

This is because of the considerable creativity and intelligent interpretation of ideas/inventions, which characterises the business.

Development is absolutely essential to success, because it ensures that the initial ideas/concepts presented to us, are researched and improved upon, so that they eventually become viable products or processes. Without such development, presentation to industry and/or potential backers, can result in the impact being minimal, and, even more important, the invention can be "taken away from the inventor" because the basic idea/concept is exposed prematurely, and therefore allows third parties to grasp the identified need so that they (and not the inventor) can develop it further, and into a different solution.

It is important to make prototypes because these will:

1. Show that the invention works.

2. Ensure that you have identified any shortcomings and, hopefully, eliminated them.

3. Ensure that you have something to show to potentially interested third parties.

Presentation Facilities
A complete range of services for presentation and marketing of inventions is available, including CAD, and preparation of photography and artwork for leaflets, brochures, posters and exhibitions. Some examples are shown on this website.

Communication With Industry
Since it was first established, WYBROW INNOVATIONS has, naturally, acquired many contacts with manufacturing and marketing organisations, and centres of expertise and distribution. All of these were acquired by initial investigation for various reasons. You can seek, and find, similar organisations or perhaps even the same ones, but this will be time-consuming, and there is nothing so useful as proven experience!

However, we do not place so high a value on "Company Contacts" as we do on the approach to use when communicating with them, and on the need for development of the basic invention before such contact is made. All approaches to industry/third parties, are made carefully, and in complete confidence, and only after a patent application, describing the invention, has been filed at the UK Patent Office.

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