- Patents protect technical inventions in all fields. The inventions needs to be new and inventive. That means they don’t exist in the state of the art yet! - A design protects the aesthetic form of your product. - A Trademark protects your brand name. Besides those there is also copyright law. Therefore you don’t have to apply.

Therefore you should conduct a patent search. A patent search can be done with freely accessible web resources. Our Course "Master Patent Search" offers step by step guide on how to do it!

There are a lot of different reasons when to do a patent search! Two common reasons are: "I need to know to State of the art" You can get a Patent on inventions that are new and inventive over the State of the art! "Am I allowed to produce/sell a product?" Others might own a patent already on this technology! This can result in problems later on!

A Patent is a territorial right. That means you need to have a Patent in every country where you want protection for you product in. So it strongly depends on the number of countries you choose. If you only want one country then you can calculate between 3000 and 5000 Euros for the first 5 years. You can find further information in our Patent Basics course. So the costs depend on multiple points: National Protections is enough? Or do i need an international Patent application? Is my technology really complicated? Can I provide good information? There is a broad range between 2000 € and 15000 €. The actual costs depend on the above mentioned points!

You are the only one allowed to use your invention in the countries where you own the patent. Besides that noone can sell, market or produce the product.

Short version: Whenever it is easier to copy your product than the development, it makes sense to patent your idea!