Patent Theft threatens enterprising inventors

An item covered by BBC news on TV and radio yesterday morning may be useful when covering protections of ideas and inventions for start-up businesses and entrepreneurs. Trevor Baylis, who invented the wind-up radio among other things and often features as a classic entrepreneur-inventor in business text books, is calling for Government action to help British inventors defend their ideas from rivals who try to steal them.

He claims that theft of patented ideas is a common problem, and because it is not a criminal offence it is almost impossible for small businesses or individuals to take the thief to court. Legal action would involve the patent owner suing for theft through the civil court and bear the costs themselves, whereas if this was a criminal offence the state would bear the cost of the case. He is supported in his action by Vince Cable, his local MP, who successfully introduced a private member’s bill which increased the penalties for copyright theft from a maximum of two years to 10 years imprisonment. This does not cover patents, and the argument is that it should now be extended to do so.

However the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys say that it is not that simple – this BBC article covers their arguments clearly, and also includes links to extracts from the coverage of the issue from both radio and TV yesterday. If you want to use a longer piece about it, download the podcast of yesterday’s edition of radio 5’s ‘Wake up to Money’, and Trevor Baylis’s own website offering help with ideas, inventions and patents offers a very clear explanation of the whole process to inventors and small businesses, which could be very helpful for students and might form the basis for an early investigation.