How to Patent my Idea from a scientific project?

” Pattern makes Patent”

                 As we discussed the construction of a simple school science project, now our task is to convert this project into a high-end research project. A high-end research project means it should go for a patent application. How to patent my Idea from a simple scienctific project?  So first we try to learn about the patent. Why do you need to get a patent my idea ? If you publish your work, no one reads your paper. One fine day, somewhere from another corner of the world, some researchers search for your work and do some more add on to your field.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

How to Patent my Idea?

        If you asked yourself "How to patent my Idea?", the first, you need a simple idea, then you need to search whether anyone has already done it or not. If no one did this, then that is the novel idea. All novel ideas are not innovative ideas. If it is patent going, then it is an innovative idea. Moreover, innovative ideas should be useful or applicable in society.
 

What are the benefits to patent my idea?

     
                      If you search for patent applications, you will get plenty of applications from different corners from the globe. Are those all patents moved to commercialization? Are they doing any business or startup out of these patents? No, then why everyone (educational institutions) filing the patent? In my native place, there is one popular proverb, ” Everyone is going to market, that’s why the donkey is also going to market”.

          Most of them involved in a similar donkey race. If the patents are not able to convert into commercial or business means, then, there is no value for the patent my idea. Some poor and incapable educational institutions keep their patents for national or international accreditations or ranking purposes. Finally, they advertise their patent application as an achievement yearly twice in the national newspaper in the form of a huge banner.

       Then the poor crowd also believe them. But you go and investigate their patents. You will come to know reality. There are so many unusable and bogus patents. They are not even generated any revenue to date. It is always good to go first for a patent application before you start your journal publication process. But the key point is to convert the patent my idea into commercializing aspects.

How you will do the commercialization of your patent?

     
                    If the applicants or inventors are in the big business game (MNC), then you can go for complex problems. I am not discouraging anyone here. For example, Big fish always try to eat small fish in the market. If the small fish stay as a single in the sea, then its chance of survival is too low. You may ask me, ” how small fish will be grown up and live a better life?”. We can learn a lot of things from nature.

              If you observe very closely to the small fish in the sea or fish tank, they live together in the form of the colony. If you are an individual or small firm, then you should make a colony of associated partners or nonprofitable educational trust. Otherwise, you can sell your patent rights to these big fishes. Then they will help you in all regards. Please don’t ever try to compete with them alone. If you do, you will end up with failure. These are things happen after you get an innovative patent.

What is section 3d of the Indian patent act,1970?

                       Before going any further, now we will discuss 3d section of the Indian patent act, 1970. You may ask why this particular section of the act is so important? The people from the pharma industry were well aware of this section. Because they face this problem more frequently.  In simple terms, you can’t ask royalty for the mixture of a known compound of any different compositions.

            Unless otherwise, it improves the efficacy of the mixture of the compounds. I will try to explain in a little more detail way. If you mix more than two compounds, then you get the overall improvement of the product’s property. In India, because of this law, we won’t get patent for the pharma formulation of known compounds.

How electronic industries get the patent right by using the same known LCR components?

     
                    They also use the same basic known LCR components for the circuit. Yes, they are using already known components such as diodes, capacitors, resistors, etc. They use the same things, their new electronic system gives new property or add on value or efficacy. At least they should get one new property. Better analogy as follows.

             You all may agree with me that “Othello” was the finest literature creation of Shakespeare. Whether he invented any new letter or word etc? No. Then how it came as the finest creation of literature. What he did? just arranged the words into the new pattern that no one done or even imagined. It was very similar to our painter's analogy.

            If you did not read yet our previous blog, please click on the link. This is called real innovation or creation. Now you may be clear with electronic patent rights. In electronics, by arranging these LCR or IC components in specific patterns, they create a new type of property for the patent applied circuits. This is called the improvement of the efficacy of known components.

How to use 3d section of the Indian Patent Act,1970 for good and easy chemistry patent?

   
                      You can use the all known thing with different compositions. But the only condition is, at least to get one new property. You need to check all possibilities from experimentation and process development optimization points of view. Don’t stick to any particular things. Keep on changing the goal post.

                    Now we go to see how to convert school experiments into a high-end research project. In our school experiment, we used sugar, salt, and water. We achieve our research project by following steps.

Step: 1

            Along with these chemicals, we need to add some more chemicals. If you mix simply two or more chemicals, will it enhance the efficacy?. Now your literature search mechanism starts. The best chemical literature search engine is SciFinder. If you plan to add silver ion into your system, it will improve the antimicrobial activity of your system.

            If you put this chemical name along with other chemicals in the keyword search, You will get detailed literature about the work done with these chemical combinations. For patent search, you can use google patent or free patents online. you will get the literature almost from everywhere, except China. Another option for a patent search is with the help of your patent attorney. The last option is the best.

What is the reason to add silver ion into your experiment system?

           Silver ion showed very good antimicrobial activity. So that it may give the new antimicrobial property for our sugar crystal. Because normal sugar decomposes easily, due to the faster growth of microbial. If this work no one has done yet, then you will have the possibility to get an innovative patent. If someone did already this work means, you just change the goal post.

Step:2

        You need to change the character of the material completely. Don’t stick with sugar crystal. Any other form of material state, you can use for your system. Sugar won’t go for the gaseous state. Then what else left. There are some intermediate state in between solid and liquid.

          That state is nothing but the hydrogel state. Now, what happened? We completely move from liquid solution state to gelly state of the material. This is generally called a gel formation of water. You can gallate the water in a lot of ways by using chemical reagents to form three-dimensional matrix, polymer, lipid, proteins, amino acids, DNA, RNA etc,.

           You should choose a matrix depends on their industrial applicability. If your application is on the agricultural research field, then better you can use some polymer matrix. In this matrix, you can incorporate the pesticide or fertilizer or minerals.

          What is the reason to incorporate these chemicals into the hydrogel matrix? If these chemicals stay inside the hydrogel matrix, it releases the chemical slowly into the soil. Then through the soil, it will finally reach into the root of the plant. This slow-release rate of the chemical into the outside environment reduces pollution to a huge extent. Former’s demand for urea is very high. This is a really big market with regular need.

Step: 3

          Once you fix with your specific experimentation design, then you can create the mind map for different possibilities as said in the previous blog. Now you keep on running with a lot of trials. After getting the hydrogel based on your application, your hydrogel analysis starts. Already we discussed agriculture.

Examples for Patent my Idea:

         Now, I will discuss pharmaceutical applications. For example, if I am making a hydrogel for diabetic wound, then want to focus following analysis before applying to the humans.

I. Material characterization by using physical and chemical properties:

     1. Optical property by hydrogel by using UV spectrophotometer in different temperature ranges. For example, from 0 C  to 80 C.

      2. To carry out the rheology test, you can test the hydrogel samples in different temperature conditions. This test gives viscoelastic properties of the hydrogel sample in different thermal condition.

     3. All short of microscopy and nanoscopy imaging varies from AFM, HR-TEM, FE-SEM and if possible, do some single molecule analysis.

II. Invitro biological studies:

1. Characterize the antimicrobial properties of the hydrogel.

2. You should do some cytotoxicity analysis for the hydrogel. It gives more information about the toxicity of hydrogel. If your hydrogel shows good antimicrobial activity at the same no toxicity, then you can take this further analysis. I mean we can proceed to animal testing.

III. Real-time testing: 

               In this stage, the product passes through a lot of animals and human trials. In this stage, you need strong collaboration with big fish of pharma. Otherwise, it will not be possible.

               In my personal opinion, once you clear with the second stage of analysis, you can apply for both product and process patent. Then you go with pharma collaboration for further testing. This product and process will be commercialized in the market place. Filing patent and commercialization take place at the same time.