Once the invention is done, the patent must be registered. It is not strictly necessary to do so, but it is highly recommended to have rights over said invention as industrial property. With a patent, you can exploit your invention exclusively.
The patent holder can decide who manufactures, uses and markets the product in question and under what conditions. In this way, the inventor can profit from his creation without worrying that others will copy his product without his permission and without financial compensation, although for a maximum of twenty years. It seems all advantages, but to obtain the patent you have to follow a long, expensive and very complicated process.
Let’s say that Miguel (fictitious name) has developed a new technology with which, through the mobile phone, one can cook food or reheat food. An innovative portable kitchen, imperceptible within the mobile and at a very low economic cost.
Without a doubt, it will be a success, especially among those who always carry the tupperware on their backs. If Miguel wants to take advantage of this invention, which he has spent years developing in his spare time, he will need to register the patent before the large multinationals copy the design and sell it as their own.
Thus begins the arduous path of applying for the patent, and it will only be granted three or four years later and having advanced more than 800 euros. If you intend to keep the patent for twenty years, you will spend at least 5,800 euros. In the worst case, it could exceed 9,300 euros. This without taking into account what legal advice may cost.
A long and expensive process
The first thing will be to start working with a patent attorney. Of course, it is not mandatory, but it is almost essential in most cases, due to the complex bureaucracy to deal with. With his help, Miguel will prepare an application along with which he will pay his first fee, which costs 100 euros. If the procedure is done electronically, both with this rate and with most of these, a 15% discount is applied, so this rate is 85 euros if paid online. Next, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) evaluates the application, and if it finds any defect in it, Miguel and his lawyer will have to pay a fee of 42 euros (36 euros with electronic payment) to correct the errors within a period of time. two months. If not, the patent is denied.
The next step is to request, through a form that must be filled out in writing, the preparation of the Report on the State of the Technique, or IET, a mandatory technical examination in the process, but at an unavoidable cost of 685 euros (582 euros online).
Once the IET has been passed and 18 months after the filing of the application, the SPTO publishes the application in the Official Gazette of Industrial Property (BOPI), open to observations and criticisms from third parties, which will have two months to carry them out in a reasoned manner. and documented. Afterwards, Miguel will have two months to respond to these observations and modify his request if he believes it is necessary, all to defend the validity of the patent he is pursuing. Of course, the modifications will cost you 23 euros.
The SPTO examines the resulting file and, if everything is correct, proceeds to grant the patent. But we are not finished, there is still the payment of the annuities. The first two years, which have already elapsed during the concession process, are already included in the initial fee. As of the concession, an annual fee begins to be paid to maintain the patent, of 18 euros for the third year, but the cost increases to 490 euros per year during the last four years of the patent’s validity.
If Miguel does not pay the annuities on time within the stipulated period, they can increase their cost each quarter up to more than 50%. Of course, if Miguel were an SME or an entrepreneurial individual, he will have a 50% discount on all the fees of the application process and the first three annuities (years 3, 4 and 5).
An example with a tour: the countertop with the invisible stove
To register a patent there are two requirements, the singular character of the design and the novelty of the invention. Once patented, the product will be protected from competitors trying to copy the success of a technological innovation.
An example is Cooking Rak, a “smart” hob, which includes an induction cooker that is invaluable at first glance and can be controlled with a mobile phone. Its inventors, two Valencian entrepreneurs, one an expert in ceramics and the other in natural stone, admit that their biggest challenges when developing their invention was adapting induction technology to the so-called ‘Internet of Things’, as well as keeping costs down. production as low as possible.
Achieving an attractive product for the market could not have paid off financially without a patent that protects the model that both have created. Otherwise, anyone with more resources could use the same design freely to profit from it, without investing a euro of their own in R&D.
But these Valencians saw potential in the synergies created with the multinational Rak Ceramics, with which they began working exclusively in 2015. That year they had a turnover of 200,000 euros. In 2017, more than 2.5 million and they intend to reach 60 million euros in a 10-year business plan.
Their company was born in 2015 with the aim of exclusively distributing the “Maximus” series of the multinational Rak Ceramics in Spain and Portugal, although they took advantage of this connection with the ceramic giant to develop their joint project with Rak Ceramics. Thus, they managed to distribute Cooking Rak in all the countries in which the company is present. This multinational with which they have associated closed the 2017 financial year with a net profit of 67.21 million euros.
The invention is inspired by an existing product, introduced to the market years ago, but with a very different presentation and, above all, an exorbitant price. The inventors started from that defective proposal to innovate with a minimalist design that aims to use the spaces to the maximum, offer highly advanced technology (such as the connection with mobile devices) and at an affordable price.
Both the commercial director, Roberto Arnau, and the general manager, Nacho Rodríguez, agree that “the project arises in response to the need to find new solutions to market trends in kitchen furniture design and to make the most of spaces “. They maintain that “the countertop needed a new, innovative concept accessible to all customers”.
But the innovation that an invention can demonstrate does not guarantee its success, especially if its inventors intend to protect their creation and do not have the financial support of an international multinational. A good idea, accompanied by an impeccable preparation, can fail despite everything due to lack of resources, among other things.
Innovation is not always synonymous with success
Tandem Company is a strategic business and innovation consultancy. Its popularity has grown exponentially over the years after carrying out projects with the Barcelona City Council, Indra, Airbus and Banco Santander. In fact, in 2018 Iberdrola and Ferrovial, among others, contacted them to apply for projects. They have a ‘technological lab’, in which they carry out concept tests that integrate emerging technologies and provide rapid response during the digital transformation of their clients. They are not limited to strategic planning. “We are a partner that interprets and provides vision, proposes opportunities and what is most important, we have experience in carrying them out”, says Eloy Herrero, its general director.
One project that Tandem was put in charge of involved a new product concept for the consumer market. It was a heated air freshener device for the home. Its most distinctive feature: the possibility of improving the air freshening performance thanks to the use of a heating fabric. It sounds simple, but from concept to completion there are expenses and inconveniences that can paralyze or even end a project.
The cost to, in the first instance, arrive at this concept was about 100,000 euros. Later, the company needed to create a series of prototypes to test it and validate the principle of operation and usability. That meant another 50,000 euros. So far, the simple intention to innovate has already cost close to 150,000 euros.
The next step, once the effectiveness and usefulness of the created product was verified, was to patent the invention. Patenting in Spain, as we have seen, would cost between 5,800 and 9,300 euros, assuming that the company wants to maintain the patent for the twenty years in which it can do so. Now, that is the cost of patenting in Spain, and only in Spain. In other words, this does not protect the idea against possible copies in other countries. According to the SPTO, a patent at the European Union level with the payment of annuities (and translations) in 11 countries, has a cost of approximately 40,000 euros.
But a project like this needs a broader scope of protection, an international patent. This means that they had to start a PCT international application. Thus, with a single application, you can start the procedures to obtain the patent in more than 140 countries simultaneously. This simultaneity occurs only during the first phases of the application, but later the country-by-country procedures must be continued. The PCT application cost about 3,000 euros.
Later, for the granting of the patent in each of the requested countries and its maintenance, they needed an investment of 300,000 euros to continue the project. The minimum investment for its subsequent industrialization was 500,000 euros. This project did not go ahead. The economic requirements to carry it out were unattainable due to the cost of consolidating patents and their industrialization, which was higher than the capital available to Tandem and, above all, due to the risk of not having a consolidated market. “You have to start from the idea that ideas can be very good, but their feasibility depends on many factors beyond economic, industrial or market factors,” says Herrero.
This is the daily bread for those who dare to innovate. You can hit the nail on the head and attract the necessary capital from large companies or you can hit unaffordable costs for those interested in your invention. In any case, innovating and wanting to do business with it is not free. Beyond the time and effort that a team must invest to turn an idea into a reality, the economic barriers to carrying out these projects…
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