In general, the goal of research is to constantly innovate and/or gain knowledge. This is labor intensive and, ideally, the researcher wants to be acknowledged in some way. This could be credit; this could be money. However, others will rather not do this voluntarily. Therefore, authorities set up a framework of legislation to ensure that people can exercise their right on their findings. This is laid down in Intellectual Property (IP) law.

IP law consists of a collection of multiple fields of law, e.g. tradename, trademark, copyright, and patent law. For scientists, patent law will by far be the most relevant. This field of law is nationally laid down in the Rijksoctrooiwet 1995 (ROW) and internationally in the European Patent Convention (EPC).

Submission

Rijksoctrooiwet 1995 (ROW)

In the Netherlands, the Rijksoctrooiwet is in effect. This law states that patents can be submitted to the octrooicentrum Nederland. The center initially only judges the formal criteria and does not judge on material criteria. In other words, the center initially only judges if the patent is submitted correctly and contains the correct information but does not look into inventiveness or novelties.

European Patent Convention

A patent can also be submitted internationally. In Europe, the European Patent Office (EOP) is the authority based on the European Patent Convention (EPC). Via the EOP, the patent gets submitted to multiple countries pending approval in respective countries. It is important to note that the EOP is not an EU-related organization and thus does not have the same uniform international implementation. Before approval, the EPC looks at both the formal and the material criteria laid down in the EPC and corresponding literature.

What can be patented?

Art. 2 lid 1 ROW states in short: submittable for patents are new inventions, which require and inventive step and can be applied to its respective industry. From this, three things can be highlighted: new invention, invention step and applicability.

New invention

An invention is only new if it is not a part of the current state-of-the-art (art. 4 ROW). In this sense, state of the art is everything made public by any means (written, orally, other, etc.). This also means that it is smart to submit a patent before announcing the invention, as announcing will make the invention public and thus not new anymore. This shows the absolute character of novelty. There is, however, an exception to this: if a patent is submitted in one country, it is possible to submit in other countries for the same invention within the same year.

Inventive step

Aforementioned invention must be the result of inventiveness/inventive step. This means that this particular invention was not obvious for an expert in the field (art. 6 ROW). This implies that small changes do not conform to this criterion and therefore cannot be patented. Other inventions are more in a grey area, for example the catering of a long-lived need. In general, are patents for these inventions (in the grey are) submittable. The EPO uses the problem-solution approach to determine if something if inventive. The organization then looks if the invention indeed is a solution for a long-lived need or if an average person in the specific field could invent this easily.

Applicability

At last, the invention must be able to be used in the specific industry it is invented for. In short, this means that the invention must function properly, as it is intended to do. Actors in the industry should be able to use this invention to their benefit.

Expiration date

The validity of a patent depends on the registration. If the registration was all correct, the patent ends up in the octrooiregister (NL). As mentioned before, only formal criteria are tested. The novelty, inventiveness and applicability are only tested in case of a lawsuit. The EPO does test these things upon approval, though. If registered, the patent stands for twenty years. For medicinal products, extra and prolonged protection can be requested. This can be given in a supplementary protection certificate. The ratio behind this is that for medicinal products, often substantial development costs are made. This certificate gives an extra five years of protection for the patentholder.