Patent protection of new effective solutions is an important component of innovative activities of a company.

Patent umbrella

When patenting a new idea, it is necessary not only to make sure that patents properly protect the gist of the proposal, but also to block all possible ways of circumventing these patents by competing companies. This is achieved by means of a “patent umbrella”.

A well-constructed patent umbrella hides an important idea among other, less significant “camouflaging” proposals and protects all the key versions of an object being patented. To build a patent umbrella, we generate a wide spectrum of alternative versions of a technical system and select suitable ones for patenting.

Circumventing of competing patents

An idea being patented often has a very close prototype. This prototype can be partially or almost fully similar to this idea. The solver should modify their invention in such a manner that it is not covered by a competing patent. Thus, it is necessary to circumvent the patent.

The main patent circumvention methods are the legal method which implies reformulating the claims and the engineering method which consists in inventing a new version of a technical system. Our approach combines both of them. The gist of our approach is in “changing without a change”. We find one or more versions of a technical system which are maximally close to the one described in the patent we want to circumvent. They may be very similar in the principle of operation, structure, functioning, etc. At the same time, these versions have a significant distinctive feature which allows a patent attorney to apply for a new patent.

Technology

To build patent umbrellas and circumvent patents, we use an effective tool based on the technical system evolution regularities – the “Alternative Solution Generator” which is part of the Target Invention Idea Protecting technology. This tool helps to identify the entire field of possible transformations of a selected technical system.