How can you protect yourself from imitations with your own property rights?
What it's about
Motivate inventions at an early stage and recognize them as inventions.
Motivate inventive activity precisely where it can help economically (i.e., where patents protect own business activities and where patents keep competitors at a distance).
Conduct patent work with economic success in mind.
Achieve long-term uniqueness of own products and services.
What patent protection makes possible
Revenues can be generated where added customer value can be created.
Patent protection makes it possible to set higher prices and to sell the product or service over a longer time horizon.< /p>
Keeping your customer's advantage in mind
Classical patent work, where patenting activity occurs starting from the development of innovative ideas, results in patents whose scope of protection may not cover the customer's benefits.
Patents are often filed when an invention is considered patentable. The customer's perspective and the relevance of the invention to the customer may be overlooked.
The objective is a reverse approach in which, starting from the customer's wishes, innovative ideas are sought which are then to be patented.
The right approach
First: Analyzing customers, the company's own products (current and future), and competitor products.
Second: Derive aspects that should be patented.
Third: Patenting.
Consideration of the entire product life cycle
The entire life cycle of a product or service should always be considered when looking for relevant fields for patenting. Crucial innovations can lie in all phases of a product's life cycle!
Regarding Justus Kreuels:
Justus Kreuels, German and European Patent Attorney since 2011/2012, studied mechanical engineering at the TU Munich and the RWTH Aachen. He is co-founding partner of karo IP. A main focus of his practice is the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the field of mobile communication, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, etc. in Germany.