How to get a patent for invention. Recommendations for drawing up application materials

Availability of patents for inventions is a significant indicator of innovative activity in scientific research organization, one of efficiency criterion of its work, creates legal basis for integration innovations into practice and future commercial use. Not every inventor can formulate the point of his invention and describe it correctly according to demands of current legislation.Objective is to help a beginning inventor to form description and formula of invention correctly, to provide information, necessary for giving patent’s application.Recommendations for drawing up a claim according to the patent law of Russia are present in the article with an accent on inventions in the medical area. Conditions of patentability, objects of invention, patent validity periods have been considered. Conditions of creation companies’ inventions have also been highlighted. In the article the demands to a content of applications, structure of description, formula and an abstract of invention have been disclosed in details in compliance with “The Rules of drawing up, applying and considerations of papers (documents), which are the basis for performing legally significant actions in accordance with State registration of inventions” and “Demands to documents of an application of patent of invention”, approved by the Order Minister of Economic Development of Russian Federation, dated on 25.05.2016 No. 316. The example of description of invention in the medical area is given in order to illustrate an invention prototype.According to patent legislation of Russian Federation, a protection is provided to technical decision, which is new, not evident for a specialist in a given filed and is fully revealed in description of an invention in an amount, that is enough for its reproduction, and realization of a stated purpose is confirmed by materials of application. Formula of application must be totally based on a description.

Quo Vadis Patent Litigation: Ascendis Animal Health (Pty) Limited v Merck Sharpe Dohme Corporation 2020 1 SA 327 (CC) - In Search of the Bigger Picture on Patent Validity

In October 2019 the Constitutional Court (CC) handed down judgment in the matter of Ascendis Animal Health (Pty) Limited v Merck Sharpe Dohme Corporation 2020 1 SA 327 (CC). This is its first judgment dealing with the validity of a patent and, as it concerns issues that go the heart of patent law, the judgment potentially has far-reaching implications for patent litigation in South Africa. At issue was the question of whether a court's finding of patent validity on one ground in a revocation hearing ought to have a bearing on a subsequent infringement hearing on the same patent, to the extent that the alleged infringer is barred from raising a different ground to attack the validity of a patent. In essence, did the attempt to do so offend the principle of res judicata? This was a direct appeal to the Constitutional Court after the High Court ruled that it did so offend, and the Supreme Court of Appeal refused leave to appeal. The Constitutional Court was deadlocked on this issue, with the result that the decision of the High Court refusing Ascendis' application to amend to introduce a new ground of attack stands, and the res judicata objection was upheld. The decision raises important questions about the application of the principle of res judicata in such cases where the Patents Act allows dual proceedings for revocation and infringement actions, the meaning of provisions of the Act as they relate to the certification of patent claims, and the broader public interest considerations implicated in patent law adjudication. This note observes that while the outcome sends a strong signal about the courts' displeasure at attempts to prosecute "repeat litigation", an unsatisfactory outcome is that patents can apparently be validated on the basis of merely one of the mandatory requirements for patent validity as required by the Act. It argues that such an outcome is undesirable and does not serve the public interest. This is because it closes the door to further challenges while potentially thousands of patents, which would not have passed the validity test had they been subjected to substantive examination, remain on the patent register.