Steps towards Patenting Innovations for a Sustainable Startup Ecosystem

Abstract

However good a product may be, sooner or later, competition will catch up and there will be me-too products in the market. The best way to beat this product imitation is through innovation in products and processes. New products catch eyeballs and sell. But innovation is neither easy nor cheap. A huge amount of money has to be invested in R&D for innovation and therefore there is a need to prevent imitation by others. This is particularly relevant for Startups who operate on a tight purse. Such prevention can be done through patents. Once the innovator patents the innovation, he has a legal right over his innovation for twenty years in India and others can’t imitate it. This helps the innovators to have a better market for the product and also they get a better return on investment in R&D. In this article, the authors have emphasized how patents are a business necessity for Startups and how in India patent applications are filed and patents are granted.