What Is a Patent? Definition and navigator

Patents are a correct granted to an inventor that allows them to exclude all others from making, using, or selling their creation for 20 years.

In the US, the US Patent and Trademark Office reviews and approves patent applications, which provide protection against others stealing their concept. Once approved, the patent holder is then the sole person or corporation who is permitted to make, use, or sell the product, procedure, or answer to a technological issue that they have developed and registered. All others are prohibited, unless they are given permission.

Patent types

There are three major types of patents:

1. Design patents – anyone who creates a recent design for a product can apply for a design patent. Examples include beverage bottles (ponder of the shape of the Coca-Cola container) or furniture (such as the kneeling chair).
2. Plant patents – botanists involved in grafting and creating recent hybrid plant forms can apply for a plant patent. Examples include the Smooth Angel rose or drought-tolerant corn.
3. Utility patents – anyone who invents or discovers “any recent and useful procedure, machine, piece of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any recent and useful advancement thereof” can apply for a utility patent. Examples include the little green drink stopper Starbucks gives out with its cups or the hoverboard type of skateboard.

The patent procedure

While many inventors may desire to rush out and apply for patent protection as soon as they arrive up with a revolutionary recent thingamajig, many experts recommend otherwise. Why? The patenting procedure can expense in the neighborhood of $25,000. So unless you’re sure your concept is commercially viable – meaning that you can make money from it – you may desire to hold off filling out the paperwork.

More significant than protecting your concept is developing your concept and confirming that it has any worth. Will others pay to buy it or use it or to incorporate it into their product? Why spend money on protection for a product no one wants, is the net income.

First steps

So before you commence work on that patent application:

• Either fill out a disclosure document with the U.S. Patent office, which documents the date of conception, or specific your concept in an inventor’s notebook. That establishes the date on which you came up with the concept, in case anyone ever questions the timeline.
• Check to be sure no one else has already patented your concept at the U.S. Patent Office.
• Invest in a trade feasibility study conducted by a corporation that specializes in them. The Wisconsin recent concept Service Center may be able to assist point you in the correct path. Such studies look at commence-up costs, trade demand, safety, and production feasibility to determine if there is a trade for your recent concept. They expense a few hundred dollars, which is better than the thousands the patent will expense.
• Once you are sure your concept is sellable, consider proceeding to patent it.

The patent procedure can receive several years and your application can be rejected for a number of reasons, such as if it is too close to another existing patent.

view also: How to Register a Trademark and Patent a Business Name