Why North East manufacturers should take a closer look at patents
A North East manufacturer added three dots to one of their products. That was the invention, three dots, arranged in a specific triangle on a lifting hook. It sounds almost too simple to patent.
It wasn’t. At Archer-IP, Gateshead based Patent Attorneys, secured a patent for that idea on behalf of Tiger Lifting, based in Alnwick, Northumberland. The patent now covers most of their product range, protects them against copying in markets worldwide, and qualifies their profits for the UK’s Patent Box tax relief reducing their corporation tax bill on sales across the globe.
The lesson for North East engineering and manufacturing businesses is a simple one: patents aren’t reserved for complex technology or groundbreaking science. The vast majority of UK patents granted every year protect incremental improvements. They’re practical, specific, commercially valuable ideas developed by businesses exactly like yours.
Yet many companies with active R&D programmes never file a patent. Often it’s because the process feels opaque, expensive, or simply unfamiliar. They don’t know whether their improvement is patentable, what filing would actually protect, or whether the investment is justified. So they do nothing and leave their hard-won improvements unprotected.
Archer-IP, North East based patent attorneys and members of EMN, have produced a series of 15 short video and audio guides to address exactly this. Watch them here: https://www.youtube.com/@archerip Each guide is between three and six minutes long (short enough to watch during a break) and covers a specific aspect of the patent process in plain, accessible language.
The series covers everything from the basics of intellectual property to how patent infringement works. Topics include how to assess whether an invention is patentable, what information a patent attorney needs to draft an application, how to read and review a draft patent, and what the different types of patent search are for. There are also guides on patent filing strategies, including approaches tailored to startups, established businesses with product portfolios, and companies with game-changing innovations.
One theme runs through all fifteen guides: patents are a business tool, not just a legal formality. They protect your competitive advantage, support investor conversations, open doors to licensing revenue, and, through the Patent Box scheme, can deliver meaningful tax savings on profits from patented products sold anywhere in the world.
The guides are available free on YouTube, with audio versions on Spotify and YouTube Music for listening on the go. They are designed for business owners, engineers, product developers and R&D teams who want to understand the patent process without sitting through a lengthy seminar or paying for a consultation just to find out whether patents are relevant to them.
If you would like to discuss whether your business’s innovations could be protected, or if you have a question after watching any of the guides, Archer-IP are happy to have an initial conversation.
Contact Archer-IP
☎️ 0191 499 8 499
📧 info@archer-ip.co.uk
📋 https://www.archer-ip.co.uk/intellectual-property-lawyers-contact
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/archer-ip-limited/