Say a word about poor patents.

Part one  

Every year about 750 000 patents are granted all over the world…
It is difficult to imagine that every year many scientific discoveries are put into practice. Plenty of the achievements are relevant to the same inventions patented different countries (look below).
Small prelude: to get secrets of making different things, on the world scene truly espionage horrors and tragedies were performed. Let’s recall the secret of silk production. It left China due to the princess, who hided few cocoons in her hair. And, island of Murano was turned to the prison for many generations of glassblower masters with help of the government of Venice. Developed system for the protection of the mystery of handicraft in a guarded document form, which is well known as a patent, helped us to keep off such incidents. Therefore, in 1474 in Venice first patent law was issued. But, first document, proclaimed sole rights to use your invention, was issued in 1624 by English King James I “Monopoly statute”. Later, patent laws appeared in other countries.  In 1790 right of patent accustomed in USA, but in 1812 – in Russia.
Patented inventions have penetrated into almost all life fields, starting with electric lightening (the patentees were Edison and Sven) and plastic (the patentee was Baekeland) till the ball pens (the patentee was Biro) and microprocessors (the patentee - Intel, for example).
Let us suppose that God-given talent has attended you and you invented something that would make millions of lives easier and it satisfy next requirements: 
a)It is new
b)Has a degree of inventiveness
c)It is commercially applicable
But don’t hurry up to be happy, because it is only the top of an iceberg, ahead you still have much to go through:
Because you can still hear the echoes from history – let’s take Bell’s or Edison’s invention as an example. Patent for the telephone, which Bell got, was contended by 13 pretenders, each of them attributed the invention of different telephone parts. That means there is no guaranty that somebody named Smith hasn’t got the patent for the same invention already, that’s why there is a purpose for saying “thoughts of the greatest crosses their minds in one direction”.
Document for authorship, issued to the inventor in one or another country is in force only inside the country. If you want to receive a patent in a number of countries, then you need to submit an international application with a mention of countries where the patent will be in force.
From the submitting the application till the moment of receiving negative or positive answer 12-18 moths can pass.
    Exact wording with extreme accuracy needed for your invention, knowingly on the world market special licensed agents exist, to go through the red tape instead of you.
    It is advisable to find sponsors, who are desirable to enrich our world with your invention, and of course enrich themselves accomplishing some financial aid to adjust the manufacturing.
    Term of the patent is limited – up to 20 years (in some cases with the ability to prolong for 5 years more). And after indicated termination patents become national heritage and quite easily can be used by other person.

To be continued …

Materials used in this article are taken from:
http://enc.mail.ru/article/?51028900