Employee invention refers to any invention and technical improvement proposal made by employees in private employment or public service, or by members of the armed forces. Employee invention allows the employer to have the non-exclusive license to use the patent right for free with the patent possessed by the inventor-employee.

Yes, but only if the software is recorded on a storage medium (CD-ROM, disc, etc.) and the combination of software and hardware as a whole represents an improvement over the prior art, has a technical result and constitutes a complete technical solution. You can however get copyright protection for your software under the Computer Programs Protection Act, which applies for all computer programs except program languages, rules and algorithms.

A patent must have industrial applicability; it must be usable in industry. The technology must have novelty; it must not be known to the public (prior art) before an application is submitted. The technology must have an inventive step; it must not be easily derivable from prior art, even though it differs from prior art.

The term of a patent right commences when the establishment of patent right is registered; it ends 20 years after the filing date of the patent application. The corresponding term for a utility model is 10 years. The effect of a patent right is subject to the principle of territoriality; that is, it is valid only in the country where the right is obtained.

The system of making a priority claim under treaty is recognized by the Paris Convention and by the member countries of the WTO. Whenever an application filed in one country is filed again in another member country within a year of the first filing, the filing date of the subsequent application is deemed to be the filing date stated in the original application.

An applicant may make a priority claim based on an invention described in the specification or drawings initially attached to an earlier application of a patent or utility model registration within a year of filing the earlier application for which he/she has the right to obtain.

The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) assists applicants in seeking patent protection internationally for their inventions, helps patent Offices with their patent granting decisions, and facilitates public access to a wealth of technical information relating to those inventions. By filing one international patent application under the PCT, applicants can simultaneously seek protection for an invention in 148 countries throughout the world.

A patent application will be taken up for examination only if a request for examination is made either by the applicant or by an interested party within 5 years from the filing date of the application. If no request for examination is made within this five-year period, the patent application is deemed to have been withdrawn. Once a request for examination has been duly filed, it cannot be withdrawn. A patent application is taken up for examination in the order of filing the request for examination thereof.

A patent family is a set of either patent applications or publications taken in multiple countries to protect a single invention by a common inventor(s) and then patented in more than one country. A first application is made in one country – the priority – and is then extended to other offices.

Technology transfer is the movement of knowledge and discoveries from the university environment to the general public. Technology transfer refers to the formal licensing of technology to third parties and the organization of new technology-based companies.