Oleg Neretin – “Don’t let your competitors make money on your idea”

Registering a patent in our country takes only a few months, but many of our inventors often lack the knowledge to assess the potential of their ideas and get them right. How to encourage scientists to do this?

Culture of inventors

— The number of patent applications in our country varies greatly from region to region. What does inventive activity depend on in the first place?

– In many ways, it is determined by the presence of scientific and educational centers, large industrial enterprises, the economic development of the region and other factors. The general level of culture in the field of intellectual property and the approaches of the regions to this issue are important. Many subjects are launching special measures to support inventors and provide tax incentives. All this helps to stimulate inventive activity.

— What do you mean by the concept of high culture in the field of intellectual property?

– First of all, we are talking about general education. Inventors, employees of enterprises, officials should at least be aware that there is a field of intellectual property and entire algorithms for securing their ideas, protecting them with certificates and patents. Without this, even if there is a promising idea, a person simply will not understand how to deal with it, how to evaluate its patent potential.

You also need skills in working with intellectual databases, understanding how to file an application, write a claim. All this together forms the level of such a culture.

— How to teach inventors to navigate whether their ideas have potential patent value?

In my opinion, everything should start from school. This is how the training system works, for example, in Japan or China. In university entrance exams, Chinese students are already being asked questions about intellectual property.

There is no such thing in our country yet, but a lot is already being done in this direction. Now the Ministry of Education and Science of our country is launching a retraining program for the teaching staff of universities. Its goal is to give teachers and professors the knowledge that will allow them to create special training modules for undergraduates – future engineers, mathematicians, physicists, chemists. The Ministry of Education and Science has already announced a competition among universities for grants for such retraining.

– What is the scope of the program?

“We expect 500 people to be retrained this year. In the next two years – another thousand. While the numbers do not seem very large, but this is only the beginning.

Scarcity of attorneys

— Nevertheless, it is one thing to assess the patent potential of an idea, and quite another to complete all the documents. Who should help with this?

Indeed, any good idea must be able to formalize. Not always the inventor can, for example, independently write the claims. In addition, it is not enough just to write this formula, it is very important to professionally draw up the necessary amount of protection. Otherwise, competitors will simply bypass your patent and be able to make money on your idea without even breaking the law.

Therefore, all over the world, including Russia, there is a whole institute of patent attorneys and patent experts who help inventors to do everything competently and correctly. There are about 2 such attorneys in our country. This is much less than in China or the USA.

Are these 2 enough for our country?

– In my opinion, not enough. Moreover, patent attorneys are not universal. The regulation is designed in such a way that each specialist must confirm his status and be accredited by Rospatent in certain areas. For work with trademarks – one exams, for work with inventions – others. Procedures and algorithms vary greatly here.

In addition, in order to correctly design inventions, an understanding of the industry with which you are dealing is required. And if you are a mechanical engineer in your basic specialty, then it will be difficult for you to describe the formulas of inventions in chemistry or pharmacology. Therefore, applicants are looking for such attorneys who are familiar with the required field of science and technology. This further reduces the pool of suitable specialists.

₽200 thousand per idea

— How costly is it for inventors to protect their ideas? Are the costs affordable for small companies and individuals?

— When filing an application and obtaining a patent, the inventor pays a fee. In our country, such a duty is one of the lowest in the world, but it is still an expense. The services of specialists who help with the preparation of the application and the claims also cost money.

To help inventors, some regions, such as the Ulyanovsk region, have introduced a system of patent vouchers. The entity provides a grant of ₽200 thousand, which can be spent on various tasks – development work, scientific research, or filing an application for intellectual property protection. This has become a certain support and incentive for the applicants.

— Protection of trademarks and especially inventions is not only money, but also time. How long does it take to process applications?

— Today Rospatent is one of the fastest patent offices in the world. In the US and some other countries, the application process can take several years. Our average time is about four months. In fact, this is the minimum possible indicator.

Why can’t you see it faster?

— When we conduct an examination of an application for an invention, we also check the novelty. For this, the entire world array of information is analyzed, both patent and scientific and technical. And there are now more than 153 million patents in the world, and about 3,5 million more are added every year. Of course, the verification is not done manually – it is done through aggregated databases. Such databases are updated with a delay of approximately three to four months.

If we consider applications faster, then a situation is possible in which a similar invention has already been patented, but did not have time to get into the databases.

So you don’t make exceptions?

– In some situations, we take risks, consider inventions as a priority. For example, if they are aimed at fighting the coronavirus. We registered such patents regardless of whether the database had time to update. In addition, the pandemic period has shown that not only the development of vaccines is accelerating, but also the posting/publication of information about the means of combating the infection.

Since last year, we have received over 800 patent applications related to the fight against coronavirus. Over 300 patents have already been issued. These include vaccines, drugs, and personal protective equipment.

By the way, the American Patent Agency also took this path, and a month after us began priority consideration of applications. Maybe our American colleagues adopted this practice from us.

Untapped Potential

“Despite the pandemic, in 2020 our country as a whole saw an increase in inventive activity. What is it connected with? Is it just antique inventions or something else?

— Over the past few years, Rospatent has been actively promoting the field of intellectual property. We regularly hold seminars on patenting and development of inventive activity, communicate with universities. Now this work is beginning to bear visible fruit.

Other factors also played a role. If we talk about universities and research institutes (and many of them have increased the volume of applications), then they have been helped by various state and regional programs for the development of science.

In addition, some regions, like the already mentioned Ulyanovsk region, have launched programs to support inventors. Many also signed tripartite agreements on the development of intellectual property with Rospatent and the Ministry of Economic Development of our country. Not all regions have been covered yet, but the process is underway.

— Are there any untapped inventive potential in some Russian regions?

— I see such untapped potential in 85 regions of our country, and this is not an exaggeration. In the USSR, about 180 thousand applications for inventions were filed annually, now this figure in the Russian Federation is only about 35 thousand.

This is not about increasing activity in some conditionally lagging regions. It must be expanded everywhere. If you take Moscow, which ranks first in terms of the number of applications and registered patents, then even here the figures can be much higher.

Now we are working closely with the regions on this issue, creating innovation support centers, and educating in the field of intellectual property. As a result, inventive activity shows growth. In the first half of 2021, we see a noticeable increase and we hope that the trend will continue.