The importance of Intellectual Property in today’s world has grown exceptionally faster as people have started to realize its importance. There have been many rules and regulations which have been updated and revised time and again in order to facilitate people and businesses so that everything can be conducted smoothly and the Intellectual Properties can be filed and protected with ease. There are many laws related to patents, trademarks and other Intellectual Property which can also be understood by the Patent Attorney and we will be discussing specifically about transferring of patent as how the owner ships of different patents are transferred and how the complete procedure is done
Types of Transfer
There are types of transfer available which decides how a person can transfer patents and change owner ships. A patent can be transferred permanently through assignment or temporarily through license and also by the operation of law. Types of transfers are discussed in brief below
Assignment:
Assignment is the process where you assign your patent to somebody. The point you must note here is that the Patent Attorney in India makes it absolutely clear that once you assign the patent to somebody, you cannot get it back hence you should assign the patent only if you want to transfer your patent and the rights related to it permanently.
License:
License is a process of transfer where you transfer the patent and its rights to somebody for a limited time. After the specified duration, you get back the ownership and all the rights related to your patent back. Licenses are of 4 times namely Voluntary License, Statutory License, Exclusive License and Express and Implied License.
Transfer by operation of law:
Transfer of patents by the operation of law usually happens after the death of the owner. After the death of the patent owner, the patents and all its legal rights are transferred by law to the nominee or the legal heir. It also happens when a company is shut down or dissolved.
Requirements of Patent Transfer:
There are certain aspects which you must consider before transferring your patent and all its legal rights to somebody. These are discussed below
Documentation:
Documentation is the heart of any business and when it comes to patent transfers, it is mandatory. Always make sure that when you transfer a patent the whole process is done in a documented format so that you have all the records of the process. All the rights you are transferring must be very well mentioned in the document and the type of transfer must be mentioned in the document as well.
Confirming the ownership:
Before moving towards the actual transfer process, it is very much important to confirm the ownership of your patent i.e to determine whether you actually own the patent or not. If you do not own it, you obviously cannot transfer it to other people. You would never want to get involved in the transfer process and document everything only to find out that you are not the owner of the patent in the end. That will surely cost you time, money and efforts.
Every detail of your patent:
Each and every detail of your patent for example patent number, application details, priority, title, number etc must be filled in the document correctly avoiding any spelling mistakes whatsoever as that might cause trouble later. All official documents must be notarized in a legal manner as this will provide credibility for your documents and a sense of trust to the other person
Proprietary Information Agreement:
Always ask the employees to sign the Proprietary Information Agreement as this assigns inventions and designs to the business and if the employees cannot do that, make them sign an automatic assignment or an explicit assignment as this will make clarity in identifying ownership to the other person or before law.