At this week we had to define what we will do and how we will protect our final project, could be protected as intellectually, developing a business about it or becamo it into a open source product.
Well, if you didn't read my biography I am from Peru. In Peru we have a governmental agency which is incharge of Intellectual Property and its integrity called INDECOPI.
About INDECOPI, not just is incharge of property, it protects our rights as users and consumer. Not following its normative has penalty repercutions..
Now, time to talk about Patents. INDECOPI has a guide for users who want to apply to a patent which you can find here.
Note: It's in Spanish so if you are interested, you can use a translator to read it.
There I found a table which explains clearly about the cost of investment and its length which I translate to English so you can take a look below.
As you can see, there are 2 categories:
1st. Patent for Invention: This patent grants you 20 years of protection and have 3 requirements:
* Novelty: Which means that have not to been discolsed any way (neither by written, oral description, use, commercialization or other means).
* Inventive Level (Obviousity): Which means that for a person with average technical knowledge in a topic, the invention should not be obvious or/and deductible using exising technology.
* Indutrial Application: Which means that invention can be produced or used in any activity or industry
2nd. Patent for Utility Model: This patent grants to you 10 years of protection and have 2 requirements:
* Novelty: It is the same as first.
* Technical Advantage: Which means that this new way, form, or configuration of an existing invention allows to use it better than it was, make a different oeration or add a new utility or value.
Save and protect a patent may be expensive for some of us and just that. Other important part apart of this is in Peru you have a year as a grace period since I published my project, which will happend next weeks. Having considered this I just have until July 2022 to present a patent application. My project fulfill the requirements because, although there are other similar products and I based my in someone thesis, my mechanism, pcbs, code, the setting between every component, the production processes and materials I used might differentiate my project from other existing ones.
Considerate this I will opt an Open Source License Iniciative.
I wrote the essential statements to apply for this licenses which most popular are showed next.
Note: If you are interested about one of these licenses you can find some information in this link.
The license which fits perfectly for my is the MIT License which is most permissive and populer. It grants a permission to you, free-charged, or any person who obtain a copy of this software and associated documentation files to deal without restriction, including limitation of usage rights, copy, modify, merge, publish distribute, and sell copies, subjected to a condition:
* Copyright notification and permission will be included at all copies, the information is provided without any warranty and claim option.
In the next section I will show you how I applied for an Open Source Lincese and you can do.
I will add a picture which summize and show how simple is to apply.
Besides of the picture when I wanted to apply for my own license it was more hugely more simple. Let's take a look of my pictures.
1st. At my repository's root I found this option.
2nd. Then we have to select the license option.
Here you can see I selected MIT License
3rd. We have to commit changes.
We will finally have this.
Finally, I concluded although my project might fit all requirements for a Invention in my country this goes against my personal objetive which is for inventors put more effor in rehabilitation machines or prostetic projects. I chose an Open Source License which is the MIT License for people who are interested in this medical-engineer field to help people replicating, improving or taking my project as an idea.
