Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Do Patents Really Promote Innovation?


Whether patents promote innovation or not, is a matter of a little disagreement. We are here to break down this complex process and let us start from the basics.
Keep reading and we are sure you will find your answers to the questions.

Even a patent attorney in India will provide you good information on how patents help to promote innovation.

What causes innovation?
We always read that the inventors are primarily driven by the hope of raising some profit out of owning their rights to their inventions.
Over the past 50 years, economists have clubbed patents with innovation.  This simply means that the patents continue to foster innovation.
These economists induce people to invest only because of the future prospect popping out from the patents. Today, firms earn more than 50% premium over
a case of a patent. It is even more in health-related products.

Researches and inventions are being done in various forms. Look at the biggest job-creating industries for the past 60 years  - consumer electronics,
computers, biotech, mobile technology, internet, and e-commerce. These are fostered more due to the patented inventions. Whenever a company invented something, they knew that the patent rights would keep their innovation secure and thus, it encouraged the competitors to come up with
something new for the market. And, it kept going. Experts say that an industry like
biotech is surviving on the basis of patents only. Without creating strong patents, it is difficult for them to raise money.

Patents foster innovation and it is not only bound to one country like the US or anyone industry like the biotech. It is universal. There was a study conducted in 2008 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and they found that the more the number of patents, the more we observed the impact on the associated inflows of hi-tech product expenditure and R&D. There are many industries where patent protection is generally considered
an effective strategy to generate more returns. Patents are popular with such industries where extensive R& D is required.

Patents are important and no one can say that the hinder innovation. Patent promotes knowledge sharing and eventually fosters innovation in society.
Many economists observed that patents improve the allocation of resources by encouraging rapid experimentation and efficient transfers of knowledge across firms.
Later, it turned out that the system of patents is actually the best and the most effective tool for knowledge sharing. A study conducted in 2006 by
the French economists claimed that 88% of the European and Japanese businesses said that they completely rely on the information disclosed by a patent registration.
This helps them upkeep their knowledge of technology advances and add more direction to their own R&D.

Imagine, you are about to start a new process in your company and you find some similar inventions that happened in the past. Undoubtedly,
if the same had been patented, the patent journal can add a lot of information for you. You can easily find out what has been done in the past and what is the need of the future.
Reading the patent information, you can open up your mind and think from different perspectives and apply your knowledge to invent something new.
Even Thomas Edison was found visiting the patent office again and again in order to study what other inventors have already achieved in the world.
Patents have always stimulated further invention and it will continue to do so in the future as well.

Understand that the very act of establishing exclusive property rights after the patenting is not only to protect the right of the inventor,
but it also promotes the diffusion of information and technology. If you want to find out why imagine a world where there were no patents at all.
There would be simply no innovative discoveries recorded and it will not encourage anyone in the future to try something new.

If we have been able to convince you about how patents promote innovation, and you are looking for a patent attorney in India to register a patent, you can give us a call anytime.