About Intellectual Property, Patents, Confidentiality Agreement, Selling and Buying
Patents constitute a field in itself, defining a long series of rights, obligations, and protections. In fact, a patent constitutes intellectual property, meaning a right to goods and resources that people created, and because of this, inventors or patent owners are entitled to protections enabling exclusive enjoyment from the fruit of their creation, unless they sold the rights to others. In the following lines, we’ll explain about intellectual property and patents, the importance of the confidentiality agreement, and also about selling and buying patents.
A Few Words About Intellectual Property
Under the term intellectual property are actually found different fields of creation, development, and invention, such as computer software, artworks, books, a logo identified with a certain commercial product, product designs, and more. These fields are divided under different categories such as designs, trademarks, patents, and copyrights, and there are even more specific categories. As mentioned, intellectual property grants its owners protections, rights, and remedies that can be claimed in court, when sometimes there’s a significant difference between tangible or regular property laws and intangible intellectual property. For example, there’s a difference between inventing a patent that can be implemented and an apartment standing on its foundation, and similarly between a musical composition, film script, trademark, and more.
In Israel, there are quite a few intellectual property protections. There are protections and rights granted fundamentally even without registration, for example on trademarks well known to the public, goodwill, and copyrights. In contrast, there are rights requiring registration, and patents are included among these. It’s worth emphasizing that the rights, protections, obligations, and laws related to patents may vary from country to country, and there are also international conventions binding the countries signatory to them.
In Israel, there’s a Registrar of Patents, Designs and Trademarks who stands at the Patent Authority, operating according to the Patent Law. The law defines remedies available for a claim in case of rights infringement, including issuing an injunction from court to parties making unauthorized use of the invention, and of course also demanding compensation. The monetary compensation available for infringement is related to the infringement quality performed, direct damages caused to the patent owner, what the infringer profited, royalty fees that should have been paid, and more.
Connection to Confidentiality Agreements
A confidentiality agreement in intellectual property is a foundation and basis for correct conduct. The path to patent registration and profit extraction from it isn’t short, and along the way you need to consult with various parties such as patent attorneys, experts, consultants, and professionals. Therefore, it’s important to draw up a confidentiality agreement obligating them to keep all details secret before the patent application is submitted. This is an agreement legally regulating knowledge and details transfer from the inventor to the agreement signatories, and therefore it actually enables efficient and relaxed conduct, when the inventor knows their secrets are protected and won’t pass, heaven forbid, to a third party. Beyond this, it’s important to remember that a patent company or any professional working with the inventor risks their reputation and business continuation in the field greatly if they violate a confidentiality agreement. But the confidentiality agreement is sometimes difficult to prove was violated. Therefore, it’s recommended to submit a patent registration application that will provide protection under the Patent Law toward those not signed on confidentiality agreement or not subject to it, and also protection under the Patent Law is more effective in many cases compared to confidentiality agreement.
And What About Buying and Selling Patents?
Indeed, patents are considered intellectual property, and this protection is also what enables at the end of the day to develop them, market them, turn them into a profitable product and sell them, and there’s definitely also selling and buying of patents. There are several tracks where patent commercialization is enabled, when in most cases it’s worthwhile to protect intellectual property by submitting a patent registration application before publishing it and/or entering negotiation for its sale. It should be noted that the sale can be accompanied by a business plan demonstrating the product’s advantages and its market potential. In any case, rights sale can be performed according to production licenses in agreed quantities, or by regions, to one or more parties, and there are even diverse tracks for receiving compensation.
For additional details, contact Av Tipus Patents and Inventions Ltd. at 03-9711011.