Patenting an app idea is important to protect from marketplace copycats, who might steal it. But make sure that your app idea must be new and novel to be subject to patent law. It should not be a clone of other apps.
Here are the general questions people have about patenting an app idea.
1. What does patent an app idea mean in simple language?
A patent is a form of intellectual property law and will prevent your ideas from being used without your consent. It endows you with the exclusive right to exclude others from developing or selling your idea.
2. Is it possible to patent a mobile app idea?
Yes! It is possible to patent a mobile application idea because it is one component with different methods of interaction. The code of the app can’t be patent as the code itself comes under the category of law covered by copyrights.
So, it is possible to patent the method or process of the application that it follows to perform a particular action.
3. What are the requirements to qualify for a patent?
Generally, patent eligibility for the mobile application idea is determined by 3 key points. Here are those 3 key points that qualify your application for patent:
- It has to be an “invention”
Generally, patents are used to protect inventions. A patent is given to the invention that described as a solution to any problem, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
- An app idea must be new and unique
If your app idea solves a problem of the users, it doesn’t mean that it is eligible for the patent. It is must that your app idea is new and non-obvious. In simple words, your app idea has not been disclosed earlier in a public format, including books, pending patent applications, articles, YouTube videos, and other sources.
- It must be qualified as useful
Last but not least, your patent must be qualified as useful. However, it doesn’t mean that your app idea can’t be under in entertaining category or anything like that. It means that your application must work at least in theory. It is the restriction that prevents people from patenting such applications that are not as useful as it should be. So, it requires you to develop a concrete and detailed explanation like how your application works to claim ownership over it.
4. Is my app idea already patent by someone else?
To check whether your app idea is already granted to someone else or not, start looking into the existing and pending patent app ideas. The USPTO advice to perform an advanced search in order to find similar items using its Cooperative Patent Classification.
5. When should I file for a patent?
Today, patenting an app idea is not granted to the person, who is first to invent it, but it is granted to the one, who is first to file patent against it. It is one of the main reasons, why many entrepreneurs and startups prefer filing a provisional patent before publicly disclosing important details.
The text above is a summary. The article is originally published here
Not all of them, but a lot of developers and businesses try to take advantage of Android’s relatively lax app publishing policies and jack in on trends by developing Android apps that capitalize on maximized user attention on a certain topic.
Covid-19 presented a similar opportunity.The world got startled and dazed as the Covid-19 pandemic run amok and locked down billions of people at home, while destroying whole economies sending them into spiraling recessions.
All of this happened within months, leaving little time for people to comprehend as to what hit them so hard and so fast.Obviously, people were hungry for information about Covid 19 and businesses took notice of this and they started developing content to suit such a drastic increase in demand related to the topic.
Many plans were there to develop Android apps as well with many Android application development companies trying to scout for clients interested in it.But Google put a big leash on their plans as it regulated the availability of such apps and content on its platforms.The new Google policy for developers effectively mentions that any app related to Covid 19 has to be “published, commissioned, or authorized by official government entities or public health organizations.”Google Removes Ad From Podcast Addict:Perhaps the biggest enforcement of this rule was when Google recently moved on to rescind the rights of Podcast Addict, one of the most popular podcast apps on Android, to run ads.The reason given behind this was that Podcast Addict had a section for Covid-19 based podcasts which were not actually produced by Podcast Addict but hosted by it.
This became the reason for such a hit on such a popular podcast app that was already 9 years old and had close to 10 million podcast downloads.And while Google SVP of Platforms and Ecosystems Hiroshi Lockheimer mentioned in a tweet that the targeting of Podcast Addict was wrong and was done due to a few kinks in the system and the app’s ad revenue account will be restored soon as well.
On top of this, he also mentioned that the app will once again be available for download for users worldwide.Not a Reliable Strategy:Podcast Addict may have gotten special attention from Google owing to its large user base and a concentrated social outrage on the issue, but the fact that the app lost more than a week’s worth of revenue was something that raised a lot of alarms.Such a strike could be devastating for smaller apps and with slow moving processes for appeals against such strikes and the murky nature of what gets approved and what doesn’t, it could be incredibly risky to pursue such an app idea right now.Google’s algorithm that deals with such policies and issues have been notorious in the past as well for sending out unwarranted strikes on sites and apps that weren’t exactly disobeying any kind of policy.
To make your mobile app successful, but you should find out the right idea before for building an app.
This is not the only thing that makes your app successful, there are many other things that need and consider to make a software app successfully.
Once you get the right app idea, you need to validate it.
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