Can I apply for a patent for starting a business? Analysis of common misunderstandings in entrepreneurship

We all know that in the initial stage, there are still many misunderstandings about the company's handling of patents and trade secrets. Can I apply for a patent to answer the question of starting a business? Analyze the misunderstanding about entrepreneurship for everyone and help everyone better face their intellectual property rights. One of the misunderstandings: Why spend money to apply for a patent? The misunderstanding of confidentiality mechanism is reflected in the fact that when the company started, it needed money everywhere. If there is technical protection, why spend money to apply for a patent and take the trade secret route to ensure that the relevant technology does not flow out? When the company is bigger and has spare money, then apply for a patent. In fact, this practice is very unwise. The first is that the cost of technical secrecy is not necessarily lower than the cost of patent application. If we want to do a good job of confidentiality, the time cost and energy cost may be more than applying for a patent if converted into direct money cost. Secondly, the confidentiality mechanism is risky. Spies who steal business secrets don't just appear in novels and movies. Their methods often catch you off guard. Myth 2: put the product on the market before applying for a patent and see the market trend of the product. If the market responds well, apply for the relevant patent, otherwise put it aside. Patent novelty means that the invention or utility model applying for patent is new, unprecedented, unpublished, publicly used in China or known to the public in other ways, and no similar invention or utility model has been applied to the Patent Office by others and recorded in the patent application documents published after the filing date. Bajie's intellectual property consultant briefly explained that putting the product on the market without applying for a patent in advance may lead to invalid patent application. Myth 3: The basis for applying for a patent is not the products that already exist in the market, and it is not necessarily the products that have already been formed. As long as you have a practical idea, you can start applying for a patent. In the later product development, some enterprises made new improvements but no longer applied for patents. The consequences of this mistake are the same as those of not applying for a patent. Because when others improve the product and apply for a patent, in turn, it restricts the product upgrade of the original patentee, which will lead to the original patentee becoming an infringer unintentionally. At this point, the original patentee lost his intellectual property rights. Myth 4: A technological achievement can only apply for one patent. Some start-ups think that a technological achievement can only apply for one patent at a time, that is, only an invention patent, a utility model patent or a design patent can be applied. There are three kinds of patents stipulated in China's patent law: invention patent, utility model patent and design patent. A product invention can apply for multiple patents at the same time, and a technical scheme can also apply for utility model and invention patents at the same time. The patent for utility model can be granted quickly, and the corresponding protection can be obtained at the earliest, which generally takes about 1 year; Invention patents usually take two to five years to examine and approve. With the improvement of national intellectual property level, the time for patent examination and approval is relatively shortened. From the review of the past two years, it is generally about 10 months to grant new patents; Invention patent takes about 1.5 years.