Applying for a patent means that the protection period of an invention is limited. According to China's patent law, inventions include three categories, namely inventions, utility models and designs. Among them, the protection period of invention patent right is 20 years, and the protection period of utility model patent right and design patent right is 10 year. This shows that once an invention is patented, it can only be protected by law for 20 years at most. After this period of time, your inventions and technological innovations will be placed in the public domain and contributed to society for free.
After applying for a patent, it means that your invention will be made public and anyone can easily obtain your technology. Although it can be protected by law, this protection is strictly limited by legal provisions. In China, a vast country, there are bound to be great obstacles in protecting patent rights nationwide.
Scope of patent protection
The scope of protection of the patent right for invention or utility model shall be subject to the content of its claim, and the description and drawings can be used to explain its claim. It means that the scope of protection of the patent right shall be determined by the necessary technical features clearly recorded in the claims, including the scope determined by the features equivalent to the necessary technical features;
Equivalent features refer to the features that basically achieve the same functions and effects as the recorded technical features by basically the same means, and can be associated by ordinary technicians in the field without creative labor;
The scope of protection of the patent right of design shall be subject to the patented product of design shown in pictures or photographs. The protection scope of the patent right of design depends on two aspects: one is the design expressed by pictures or photographs; The second is the product range used by the design specified when the patent is granted. Determining whether the designs are the same or similar should be based on similar products.
The above contents refer to Baidu Encyclopedia-Patent Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) and China.