In the field of
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
s, the phrase "to design around" means to design or invent an alternative to a patented
invention
An invention is a unique or novelty (patent), novel machine, device, Method_(patent), method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It m ...
that does not infringe the patent's
claims. The phrase can also refer to the alternative itself.
Design-arounds are considered to be one of the benefits of patent law. By providing monopoly rights to inventors in exchange for disclosing how to make and use their inventions, others are given both the information and incentive to invent competitive alternatives that design around the original patent. In the field of
vaccine
A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifi ...
s, for example, design-arounds are considered fairly easy. It is often possible to use the original patent as a guide for developing an alternative that does not infringe the original patent.
Design-arounds can be a defense against
patent troll
In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or ...
s. The amount of license fee that a patent troll can demand is limited by the alternative of the cost of designing around the troll's patent(s).
In order to defend against design-arounds, inventors often develop a large
portfolio
Portfolio may refer to:
Objects
* Portfolio (briefcase), a type of briefcase
Collections
* Portfolio (finance), a collection of assets held by an institution or a private individual
* Artist's portfolio, a sample of an artist's work or a ...
of interlocking patents, sometimes called a
patent thicket
A patent thicket is "an overlapping set of patent rights" which requires innovators to reach licensing deals for multiple patents. This concept has negative connotations and has been described as "a dense web of overlapping intellectual property ri ...
. Thus a competitor will have to avoid many patents when designing.
See also
*
Essential patent
*
Evergreening
Evergreening is any of various legal, business, and technological strategies by which producers (often pharmaceutical companies) extend the lifetime of their patents that are about to expire in order to retain revenues from them. Often the practice ...
*
Patent map
A patent map is a graphical model of patent visualisation. This practice "enables companies to identify the patents in a particular technology space, verify the characteristics of these patents, and ... identify the relationships among them, to se ...
*
Reinventing the wheel
*
Workaround
A workaround is a bypass of a recognized problem or limitation in a system or policy. A workaround is typically a temporary fix that implies that a genuine solution to the problem is needed. But workarounds are frequently as creative as true so ...
References
Patent law
Intellectual property law
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