How to protect your intellectual property

If necessity is the mother of invention, then the patent needed to protect an invention could be viewed as necessity’s awkward grandchild – one that demands a lot of attention and money. But for a chemist with a commercial idea, knowing how to protect your intellectual property is crucial.

‘There are lots of different routes that you can take,’ says Lucy Padget, Patent Attorney, at Alembia Intellectual Property, but they all involve proving your invention is new, useful and ‘not obvious’. If you can prove this, the UK Patent Office and patent offices around the world will grant you the right to stop others from copying your invention for up to 20 years.