Legal Eye: Your rights in innovation

Poland has come a long way since the early 1990s in recognizing and protecting rights in intellectual property. Long gone are the days when the courts wondered whether world-renowned brand names were also protected in Poland if the trademark had not been registered here. Of course, piracy remains a problem in Poland, but you are also likely to see many offers for fake luxury watches or purses on a stroll through Rome or New York. Most importantly, Polish intellectual property law has been harmonized with European Union law as part of Poland's accession to the EU. 

File ASAP

Even though Poland's intellectual property laws are to EU standards, inventors everywhere face unique challenges in protecting their ideas. All over the world, intellectual property rights are based on a "first in time, first in right" system. In other words, whoever files first for a patent is deemed to be the original inventor. If you delayed in making a filing and your sneaky competitor got to the patent office first, you will have to prove to a court not only that you thought of the idea first, but also your dastardly competitor stole your idea. 

While few relish the idea of litigation in any court system, most would agree that Polish courts are not an ideal forum for protecting your rights. Above all, Polish courts are known to be slow. While you are fighting for ownership of your invention, you are not making money on it. 

However, filing for a patent is not cheap. You need a patent filing in each country in which you plan to make use of your invention, although it is also possible to file for a European patent (providing protection in up to 37 countries). Regardless of your strategy, you should expect to spend a chunk of change that could amount to tens of thousands of złoties. The various costs include preparing a prototype and/or technical sketches, patent agent fees for preparing the patent application and the application fees to the patent office(s).

Protecting before filing

Patents are designed as a trade-off. You let the world see your great design for a mousetrap, but you have exclusive rights to that invention for twenty years. In the meantime, though, others may be inspired by your clever invention to dream up an even better mousetrap.

Before you let the public know about your idea, you should be looking to protect it as a business secret. As long as you take steps to prevent your idea from becoming public information, you have some protection against unfair competition under Polish law. If you need to reveal any information about your idea to people outside of your business, you should take care to sign confidentiality agreements in which you specify that your idea is a business secret. Thus if the other party runs off with your idea, you will still need to go to court, but at least you will have some evidence that it was your idea originally. By the way, your employees are also required by law to protect your company's business secrets.

By all means, innovate. Your advance planning in protecting your idea, however, is likely to have a direct relationship with the amount of money you can make from it.

Judith Gliniecki is Of Counsel to Wierzbowski Eversheds; judith.gliniecki@wierzbowski.pl