I recently had to give bad news to a new client, the CEO of a successful global electronic hardware company. This CEO hired me earlier this year to help ensure that his company’s upcoming innovations, which were the product of a several year turnaround program, were protected from competitive knock-offs. I have completed a couple of projects for the company to date, and he now wanted to discuss IP protection for a new product for the European market that would serve as a platform for later product spin-offs both there and in the US. This new product incorporated a number of highly innovative features and almost certainly could generate broad patent protection. Unfortunately, however, I had to inform my client that his company’s important innovation could not be patented in Europe because the product launch date occurred several months ago. While many reading this will immediately know that there is no “grace period” for filing for patent protection in…
↧