{"id":2701,"date":"2021-01-26T14:09:05","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T13:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/blog\/patents-101\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T16:19:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T14:19:03","slug":"patents-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/blog\/patents-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Patents 101."},"content":{"rendered":"

How smart does a design have to be to get a patent?<\/h4>\n

That’s not so bad. In fact, very clever ideas can’t even be patented: patents concern concrete embodiments of an idea. The more concretely the invention is described in the drawings and text, the stronger the patent (or patent, which is the same thing). “A strong patent” means that it holds up to patent examination and that it truly protects your invention against counterfeiting. <\/p>\n

But a competent patent attorney can write a patent for any new design. If it’s not a truly strong invention, the Patent Office will strip the text down before the patent is approved, leaving you with a weak patent that doesn’t really protect you. But then you do officially have a patent on your design. <\/p>\n

Just because someone gets a patent doesn’t mean they’ve created a really clever design!<\/p>\n

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Is my invention protected against counterfeiting if I have patented it?<\/h4>\n

First of all, only what is literally stated in the claims at the end of the patent is protected. If you’ve submitted your invention to a patent attorney and they’ve written a fancy patent for it, they have to make do with what they’ve been given. And it’s often very difficult to precisely describe what makes the invention unique and what is essential for counterfeiting. Without your help, this is likely to go wrong. It’s then difficult for a layperson to deduce this from the text, so you might not even realize that your expensive patent barely protects your actual invention. <\/p>\n

Very often, patents can simply be circumvented with a detour. Something you, as a designer, regularly encounter, even from the other side, of course! So don’t count on absolute protection from a patent. <\/p>\n

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But isn’t a patent meant to protect the inventor? It’s important to realize that patents weren’t created to make inventors rich, but to stimulate the economy. Patent law tempts you to make your knowledge public and thus make it available to others to use for their innovations. In return, you receive a certain amount of protection for a limited period. This allows you to benefit from your advantage for a while, while others have to come up with something even smarter if they want to compete with you. <\/p>\n

Therefore, a patent is always valid for a limited time and its annual maintenance costs increase every year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How strong is my position with a patent?<\/h4>\n

The business world is a tough one where money rules. If you’re a small inventor without a deep bank account and a large company decides to copy your product, even if it’s patented, they can simply ruin you financially with lawsuits involving expensive lawyers, even if they initially rule in your favor. Or they’ll come up with a whole list of examples of inventions from the distant past and from distant lands that are remarkably similar, making the judge doubt whether it was truly a new and original idea. So you never know in advance what the outcome of a lawsuit will be, even if your position seems rock solid. And a lost case is expensive: in addition to your own lawyer, you have to pay the costs of the case and the opposing lawyer’s fees if you lose. That can easily amount to tens of thousands of euros in summary proceedings, and much more in a real lawsuit. And the latter can easily take a year. As a youngster, it’s often better not to risk a lost lawsuit. <\/p>\n

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Is it wise to spend so much money on patents?<\/h4>\n

When a new client is interested in patenting a design, we always start by explaining the above. This dispels most illusions about the actual protection a patent offers. Then we explain that it’s not so bad that patents are so expensive and their protection so limited. Isn’t it more fun and sensible to invest that money in new development than in a patent? After all, by the time your product is copied and you’re disadvantaged in the market, it’s already been on the market for a while, and you simply release an improved product. A head start through innovation offers better protection than a patent, especially for a smaller company or an independent inventor! OK, so no patent, most clients conclude. <\/p>\n

Well, we say, that’s another step too far.<\/p>\n

Now that you’ve shed your illusions about the status and protection you expected from a patent, you can hopefully think about it more realistically. And then a patent can be a very useful tool in your strategy. It certainly doesn’t offer absolute protection, but it can certainly be a significant deterrent for your competitors to copy your product. So, you’d be crazy not to do anything about protection. <\/p>\n

But be practical: where is my competitor located, and what options exist to obtain some form of protection in that country at a reasonable cost? Only consider European or even global patents if you can truly serve such a large market, or know you’ll be able to license on a large scale. <\/p>\n

Or you can apply for a “broad” patent, but stop paying for less important countries as soon as the costs become too high, for example, if translation is required in several countries, or if the annual fees become too high, and you don’t do business in those countries anyway. And then you limit yourself to the Netherlands. You can also maintain your patent for a while and still choose not to initiate expensive lawsuits in case of infringement. Then it becomes a patent bluff: great if it works, bad if they don’t fall for it. Of course, that’s only a sensible tactic if you’ve kept the costs down. <\/p>\n

All in all, you’ve already gotten a few years of protection for very little money. That gives you plenty of time to design a new and improved version. <\/p>\n

In short: rely on innovation to maintain your lead, but definitely use patents as a tactical weapon in your product strategy, even if only as a bluff.<\/p>\n

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In all of this, guidance from a patent expert is crucial. The better they know your company and your products, and the more you communicate with them, the better they can advise you, and the more effective any patent they create will be. <\/p>\n

For thirty years, we’ve been protecting our clients’ products with the help of experienced patent attorneys. Feel free to stop by and discuss your patent protection questions with us, without any obligation. <\/p>\n

This article was written by Theo Wolters. Theo is an industrial designer and managing partner at Fabrique Invent. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How smart does a design have to be to get a patent? That’s not so bad. In fact, very clever ideas can’t even be patented: patents concern concrete embodiments of an idea. The more concretely the invention is described in the drawings and text, the stronger the patent (or patent, which is the same thing). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1968,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2704,"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2701\/revisions\/2704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrique-invent.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}