Patents and Intellectual Property for Inventors (TM285)

SynopsisThis workshop introduces the participants to the fundamental aspects of intellectual property law, including global issues and perspectives. It teaches participants how to generate an invention disclosure complete with claims to be submitted for patent committee review or submission to a patent agent.

A major obstacle in the generation of Intellectual Property is that in many occasions the inventors are not able to recognize the patentability of their ideas due to lack of understanding the Malaysian and International patent requirements. As a result valuable ideas are copied by competitors with detrimental consequences to the company financials.

Participants learn how to identify potentially patentable ideas and how to generate highly bulletproof invention disclosures. They receive hands-on patent description and claim formulation and drafting experience including advanced inventing and prior art search strategies.

Participants work in small groups in common technology areas and receive individualized feedback; they also learn practical techniques for avoiding prosecution pitfalls. The course material includes several case studies and sample problems with typical solutions.

This workshop is not a preparation course for Patent agent examination.

What You Will LearnIn this workshop participants will:

• Be introduced to the Malaysian and international IP laws and treaties (ASEAN, US, EU, JP)
• Learn what kind of innovations are patentable
• How to recognize patentable ideas and perform patentability analysis
• Learn how to best protect the invention until the application Is filed
• Learn the patent application requirements and how to provide the required information to a Patent Agent/Attorney
• Learn how to perform patent search
• Learn how to perform a prior art evaluation
• Learn how to draft a patent description and formulate claims

Who Should AttendThe workshop is appropriate for inventors, engineers, scientists, technical managers and other professionals responsible for generating intellectual property.

PrerequisiteThe only prerequisite is the human desire to create and invent.

Course MethodologyPresentation, case studies & group discussion for exposure to real life issues and team exercises for knowledge dissemination, demonstrating the appropriate use of tools and methods taught.

This is an interactive workshop utilizing lecture and individual/team exercises and presentations. Pre-workshop and post-workshop tests will be administered to gauge the relevant knowledge dissemination.

Course Duration3 days, 9am - 5pm

Course StructureDay 1

• What is a patent?
• Types of patents and their structure
• Patent infringement
• Patent law Malaysia, ASEAN, US, Europe, Japan
• Costs in obtaining and maintaining a patent
• Patentability analysis
• Patentability of biotechnological inventions
• Patentability of computer-implemented inventions (s/w)
• How to read a patent
• The pre-patent process
• How to recognize patentable ideas
• How to test ideas for patentability
• The invention disclosure process
• An invention disclosure form
• Writing the invention disclosure
• How to protect your invention until the application is filed

• Prior art
• Finding relevant prior art
• Keyword patent searching - online training with sample searches
• Using the US Patent office and the EPO search engines
• Free patent searching in web sources: a changing landscape
• The best patent web sites
• Principles of unity of invention of a patent application
• Clarity of a patent application
• Examining the description and claims of a patent application
• Requirement and concept of novelty
• Inventive step and the problem-solution approach of a patent application
• Inside the mind of a patent examiner
• Finalizing the application
• Filing the application
• Post filing/pre-office action matters
• Patent myths and misconceptions

• Practice generating the patent description 2 case studies
• Understanding patent claims 4 case studies
• Practice generating patent claims 2 case studies
• Summing it all up