What are the legal consequences of sharing patent application rights?

For an invention-creation, as long as it meets the application conditions (novelty, creativity, practicality) stipulated in the Patent Law, it can apply for a patent. However, not every invention-creation that meets the conditions needs to apply for patent protection. What are the legal consequences of sharing patent application rights? The editor of Legal Savior Network has compiled relevant content for you. You are welcome to browse, thank you.

What are the legal consequences of sharing patent application rights

From Article 15 of the Patent Law It can be seen that the right to apply for a patent or the joint ownership of patent rights will have the following legal consequences:

1. Rights exercise agreement takes precedence. That is, the co-owners of the patent application right or the patent right shall give priority to the exercise of the rights in accordance with the agreement. The law will not interfere too much with the disposal of the patent co-owners' rights among the co-owners, and respects the rights holder's freedom to exercise their rights.

2. In the absence of an agreement, the co-owners can only exercise their rights individually and license others to implement the patent in the form of a general license. However, if others are allowed to exploit the patent, the royalties collected shall be distributed among the co-owners. The reason why the Patent Law stipulates this is because the right to apply for a patent or the creation of a patent right is the result of the joint creation of co-owners, and each co-owner has paid a price for it. The co-owners should be allowed to independently implement the patent, and the co-owners should also be allowed to license others. Implement the patent, but the license to implement should be limited to a general license, because if it is an exclusive or exclusive license, it excludes other co-owners from the right to implement the patent or license to implement the patent, which is obviously unfair to other co-owners. In addition, in the case of ordinary licensing of others to implement, since one of the co-owners has not invested any human, material or financial resources but only uses the shared invention to collect royalties, this shouldWhen it is considered as the common interest of co-owners, the royalties collected should be divided among the co-owners.

3. Except for individual implementation or general licensing In addition to exploiting a patent, the exercise of a jointly owned patent application right or patent right must obtain the consent of all co-owners. This is the main measure to protect the rights of co-owners. Implementing a patent alone or with a general license will not cause any substantial damage to the patent rights. On the contrary, it will make full and effective use of the patented technology to create economic value. However, if the patent right is abandoned, transferred, exclusively licensed, or an infringement lawsuit filed, it will have a substantial impact on the interests of other co-owners. In this case, the consent of all co-owners must be obtained to exercise the patent right.

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