Patents provide an inventor the right to prevent others from making use of his or her invention for their own commercial advantage through illegal means. They allow the inventor to sue a person or firm for trying to make such unauthorized use of the product or the process. However, you have to keep a few important things in mind when looking for a legal recourse for patent infringement.

Firstly, you are needed to ensure that your patented invention has been literally infringed. This is to say that your product should have been copied in all its features including the apparently minor ones. It is only in exceptional cases that anything short of a literal infringement is considered a genuine infringement of a patent. However, this requires evidence to the effect that there are enough similarities and that the end result that the imitated product creates is notably similar to the genuine product.

Secondly, you need to have some type of legal interest in the patent in order to bring prosecution against the offender. You can either be the sole owner of the patented product or a licensee – exclusive or partial – of the product to be able to file a suit for infringement. You also have to consider the law of limitation of the jurisdiction and file a suit within the time stipulated for such suits, as otherwise the claim would be considered as expired.

Although you can proceed against not only the manufacturer of the infringing product but also against the person who uses the product, any such action can be taken only while the patent subsists. After the termination of the patent date, no use of the product can be alleged as a violation of the patent.

Last but not the least, though patents stand on the principle of strict liability, you should keep in mind that the use of a patent for conducting research is permitted and it does not constitute an infringement.

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