Going public with an idea or product quickly and gathering valuable feedback can pay off. However, it can also make it difficult to subsequently patent your idea or product. Patent attorney Florian Laus explains what hardware startups, in particular, should consider before making a public appearance in his guest article for Munich Startup.
As a young startup, you're often under time pressure to get noticed as quickly as possible in the market or in the digital world. Accordingly, it's common for a startup to publish its idea(s) or innovative product early on at a trade fair, on its own website, or on a corresponding platform to present itself to the world.
Publication vs. patent law
At this point, however, vigilance is very important in order to ensure the protection of one's ideas or innovative product, if desired. Such protection can usually be obtained by filing an intellectual property right, such as a patent, utility model, design, or trademark. However, under current law, the premature publication of an invention idea before its registration often makes it impossible to subsequently obtain an intellectual property right, since the invention idea, which usually forms the core of the startup, can no longer be considered new (since it has already been published) at the time of registration. To clarify: "Publication" in this sense means any announcement of the invention to a person or group of persons not bound by confidentiality.
For this reason, not only presentations of an invention at exhibitions and trade fairs or descriptions of the invention in the course of a lecture are “detrimental to novelty”, but also publication on one’s own homepage or on a publicly accessible (i.e. everyone) platform.
Possible rescue: Registration of a utility model
If publication has already occurred, there are still some promising rescue attempts, for example, by quickly filing a utility model application for your invention, which can provide (albeit limited) protection in Germany. Unlike a patent, the German utility model has a so-called grace period of six months, which protects an applicant from his own (premature) publication during this period.
In general: Before publishing your idea, you should not ignore the legal aspects.
About the author
Florian Laus is a patent attorney at the patent law firm Isenbruck Bösl Hörschler LLP. His practice focuses on the processing of patent applications from conception to grant, as well as on post-grant support, particularly in the technical fields of medical technology, pressure measurement technology, semiconductor technology, inkjet printing technology, automotive technology, printing and paper production technology, and general mechanical engineering. Furthermore, Florian Laus is also familiar with other intellectual property rights, such as trademarks, utility models, design protection rights, and employee invention law.
