European Patent Office

The European Patent Office also had sessions at ESOF within the confines of Science to business program. The session called "The European Patent System Is Changing" revealed some precious information about intellectual property protection. Maybe scientist don't keen on to learn more about patents but imagine the situation when your research work goes to waste as somebody steal your intellectual product. Protecting intellectual property is a main issue to avoid inconvenience but not cheap and quite complicated. The EPO offers you to register your research results, inventions in 40 countries but you can also file an international application which means more than 100 country worldwide. You can easily reach their free to access database where you can check existing patents and manufacturers who use them which can be really helpful when you are seeking investors. If you want to sell your idea to a company it is a must to have patent protection providing your idea is new and can be used. It reduces the risk for the given company and ensure them it is safe to invest. The procedure is long, it can took years to finish and get a grant so you have to consider it well to applicate or not. This protection mostly fits the expensive and long (10-20 years) research projects where it is not an issue to wait plus 1or 2 years and it has enough potential to cover the expenses of the patent procedure later.