What exactly is a patent family? When you file an application for a patent in any country, when granted, that patent is only valid for that particular country.
In order to seek protection for the invention the patentee must file for a patent in every country in which he or she requires protection. The worldwide applications and any publications relating thereto are known jointly as a patent family. In summary, a patent family is the sum total of all of the patents and patent applications that are the consequence of a single original patent application.
Filing of the original provisional patent can, in itself, be a foreboding experience – certainly not one that the average individual would find easy. The subsequent filing in a multitude of different countries can be equally foreboding, in fact, even more so. It is for this reason that we have patent attorneys.
These attorneys are professionals who specialize in the filing of patent applications and are specialists when it comes down to filing the numerous applications that accompany a patent family.
Before the original application for a provisional patent is made it is necessary to establish whether the invention for which the application is being made is, in fact, patentable.
This will depend upon several conditions that have to be met. For example the first thing that must be ascertained is that the invention really is a new invention – in legal terms that it has novelty. In this regard a search called a novelty search has to be carried out by the applicant or his legal representative. In South Africa this is done in the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) in Pretoria.
This is a long and lengthy process as the search is a manual one and involves going through reams of paperwork. Many other countries have managed to get their patents and the resulting patent families into databases that are published on the Internet, and these may be accessed from South Africa.
This is still a somewhat daunting task for those people who are inexperienced in the manipulation of databases.
However there are trained specialists who are able to do the job on your behalf. Patent attorneys have the skills that you need – they not only have a degree in Law, but also have received specific training that usually end up as a science degree.
Having first established that the invention is indeed patentable by carrying out the novelty search in the CIPRO offices, and if the invention meets the other conditions layed down by the Patents Office, namely that it is useful to industry, agriculture or commerce, that it should solve a problem, and that it should not be so obvious that a skilled technician would think it so, then an application for a provisional patent may be made.
This is just the first step in the long process of expanding into the patent family as the idea catches on and has to be protected in more than just one country.
If you have any queries regarding patent families, please contact one of our excellent patent attorneys, who will be most willing to assist you.
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