IP Intelligence
Patent Criticalities
The things that quietly decide whether an invention can be protected - explained before they cost you anything.
Showing 13 of 56.
Nobody wrote down who owns it
An invention belongs to its inventors unless something in writing moves it. Filing in the company's name does not by itself transfer anything. Ownership defects are …
A granted patent does not mean you are free to sell
A patent is a right to stop other people. It is not a licence to practise your own invention. Your product can be simultaneously protected by your patent and blocked…
Searching once, at the wrong moment
Most organisations search once, just before filing, and treat the result as a verdict. Searching is more useful when it is treated as a repeated activity with a diff…
The wrong people are named as inventors
Inventorship is not authorship, seniority or reward. It is a factual question about who devised the invention **as claimed** - and because claims change during prose…
Filing before anyone asked whether it was worth it
Patentability and value are different questions, and organisations that only ask the first one accumulate portfolios that cost money every year and defend nothing.
The patent died of neglect
Renewal fees are due from the expiration of the second year from the date of the patent, and each year after. Miss them and the patent ceases to have effect - usuall…
The working statement nobody filed
India requires patentees and licensees to tell the Patent Office whether a patent has been worked in India. The obligation moved from annual to once every three fina…
A granted patent can still be taken away
Grant is a decision by an examining office on the material in front of it. Section 13(4) says expressly that it carries no warranty of validity - and there are four …
Somebody is reading your published application
Publication makes your application visible to everyone who competes with you. In some industries, opposition is a routine part of the landscape rather than an except…
The divisional you could no longer file
A divisional application must be filed before the parent is granted. That is a moving target you do not control - and it is the single most common way that valuable …
The patent that only covers what you already sell
There is a version of every application that will be granted: the one narrowed to precisely what you already sell. It is also the version competitors do not need to …
The licence that could not be enforced
Most licence disputes are not about royalty rates. They are about who may do what, where, and what happens when something changes - and those are the clauses that ge…
The invention changed after you filed
A patent application protects what it described on the day it was filed. Engineering does not stop on that day - and the version you eventually sell is often meaning…
This is the Ragulika IP Educational Criticality - our own editorial prioritisation device, to help you decide what to read first. It is not a legal score, it is not calculated from your facts, and it says nothing about the strength of any particular application.
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Educational guidance, not legal advice. This material is published by Ragulika IP for general education and information. It is not legal advice, it does not create a professional-client relationship, and it is not a substitute for advice on your own facts. Patentability, infringement, prosecution strategy and every other IP outcome turn on the specific facts and on the law and Patent Office practice as they stand at the time you act. Please take professional advice before making a decision, and read the underlying provision or judgment before relying on any point stated here.