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Basics of the patenting process

Congress shall have power [...] to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their respective discoveries.
A patent is a property right for an invention granted by a government to the inventor. A United States patent gives inventors the right "to exclude others" from making, using, offering for sale, or selling their invention throughout the United States or importing their invention into the United States. In exchange for this monopolistic protection, the inventor must publicly disclose the invention (the patent document) and must pay the United States Patent Office (USPTO.gov) to prosecute (application fees) and maintain (maintenance fees) the patent.

Types of Patents: utility patents, design patents, plant patents


1.

Utility Patents: Issued for the invention of a new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or

composition of matter, or a new and useful improvement thereof, it generally permits its owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention for a period of up to twenty years from the date of patent application filing ++, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. Approximately 90% of the patent documents issued by the USPTO in recent years have been utility patents, also referred to as "patents for invention."
2.

Design Patents: Issued for a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture,

it permits its owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling the design for a period of fourteen years from the date of patent grant. Design patents are not subject to the payment of maintenance fees.
3.

Plant Patents: Issued for a new and distinct, invented or discovered asexually reproduced plant

including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state, it permits its owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling the plant for a period of up to twenty years from the date of patent application filing. Plant patents are not subject to the payment of maintenance fees.

ii. Origins Of Compulsory Licencing.


1. Compulsory licensing is a system whereby the Government allows third parties (other than the patent holder) to produce and market a patented product or process without the consent of the patent owner. This mechanism enables timely intervention by the Government to achieve equilibrium between two objectives - rewarding inventions and in case of need, making them available to the public during the term of the patent. Through such an intervention mechanism, the Governments balances the rights of the patent holder with its obligations to

ensure working of patents, availability of the products at a reasonable price, promotion and dissemination of technological invention and protection of public health and nutrition. 2. Compulsory Licensing (CL) has been an integral part of the patent regime since its inception. The introduction of patents in Venice in the fifteenth century was accompanied by a broad set of rules which included the states right to issue a compulsory licence1. Article 5 A(2) of the Paris Convention of 1883 provides that Each country of the Union shall have the right to take legislative measures providing for the grant of compulsory licenses to prevent the abuses which might result from the exercise of the exclusive rights conferred by the patent, for example, failure to work. During the World Wars, compulsory licencing was resorted to for the sharing of aviation technology and the manufacture of penicillin. 3. Relatively more recent instances of compulsory licencing are indicated below. As will be seen, both developed and developing countries have issued compulsory licences in the recent past.

Duration of Patents
Although, the length of utility and plant patent protection (patent term) was previously seventeen years from the date of patent grant, utility and plant patents filed after June 8, 1995 now have a patent term of up to twenty years from the date of filing of the earliest related patent application. Utility and plant patents which were applied for prior to June 8, 1995, and which were or will be in force after June 8, 1995, now have a patent term of seventeen years from the date of patent grant or twenty years from the date of filing of the earliest related patent application, whichever is longer. Utility patents are subject to the payment of periodic maintenance fees to keep the patent in force. Patent terms can be extended under some specific circumstances. See the U.S. Code Title 35 - Patents for a full description of patent laws.

INVENTOR BENEFITS
Once you signup and create an account, we are offering a promotion that will give you the tools outlined in this section, for a fractional of the price, if you can demonstrate you are an inventor with an active patent document.

Once you signup and create an account, we are offering a promotion that will give you the tools outlined in this section, for a fractional of the price, if you can demonstrate you are an inventor with an active patent document.

What can be patented?


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Utility patents protect inventions that are a novel, nonobvious, and useful, such as: process innovations, machine innovations, manufacturing innovations, compositions of matter, or incremental improvements from foundational innovations. The three patentability requirements:

New and Novel: For a United States patent the invention must never have been made public in

any way, anywhere in the world, a year before the date on which an application for a patent is filed. In other countries, you have no one year grace period and require absolute novelty. Read more

Original and Nonobvious: An invention involves an inventive step if, when compared with

what is already known, it would not be obvious to someone with a good knowledge and experience of the subject, for example, if you just make cosmetic changes that is obvious. Read more

Useful: This means that the invention must take the practical form of an apparatus or device, it

has to do something. Read more

What can't be patented?


Laws of nature: Galileo would not be able to patent his findings from his experiments at the Physical phenomena: Patent law classifies physical phenomena as products of nature. Thus, if Abstract ideas: Abstract ideas are concepts like pure mathematics and algorithms. You cannot

Leaning Tower of Pisa. your invention occurs in nature, it is a physical phenomenon and cannot be patented. patent a formula. However, you can patent an application of that formula. Thus, while you cannot patent a mathematical formula that produces nonrepeating patterns, you can patent paper products that use that formula to prevent rolls of paper from sticking together.

Literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works: These can be Copyright protected. Inventions, which are considered not useful or possible: For example, the USPTO will not

issue a patent on a perpetual motion machines; or offensive to public morality.

Contacting a patent attorney


Although anyone can claim to inventor or create something (e.g., Al Gore created the Internet), the reality is that an idea needs to be carefully considered in context of the law. If you are serious about protecting your invention, you should contact a patent attorney or patent agent. Applying for a patent, and its subsequent patent prosecution process, does cost money. You may see ads for low-cost services to file a patent on your behalf. Such solutions are viable if your goal is to boast to your friends that you patented something. However, if you have real-world business ambitions, it is imperative that the person writing the claims of your patent is a well-qualified lawyer. The adage "you get what you pay for" is very true in the intellectual property community. Realistically, a single patent is going to minimally cost you around $10K for the application fees, legal fees to write the

claims, and so on. You want to find a legal professional that is a subject matter expert in your domain (whether it is IT, manufacturing, mechanical engineering, biotech).

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