Your firm has developed a genuinely nifty new product. Will need to you file for a patent, and really should you trademark the product's name? Like so a number of other points in life, home business, marriage and sports, it depends.
Patent a New Item? 1st of all, you can not really "patent" a item or service. You can only patent the innovation that went into developing that product or service. Applying for and receiving a patent has a few benefits.
1. Protection and Exclusivity: Very first and foremost, receiving a patent for your invention prevents competitors from making use of it to develop identical or comparable merchandise. For example, when Post-it® notes came out, 3M had patented the technology behind them, and that gave 3M a beneficial monopoly for various years. Know, however, that the US Patent Office difficulties patents they do not enforce them. So if a business infringes on your patent, you will have to defend your patent through civil litigation.
2. Additional Income: You can license your patent to other organizations. While it in all probability does not make sense to license your patent to a direct competitor, you could license it to organizations in other industries and create a good revenue stream. If the product that utilizes the invention is not producing the desired sales or profits for your small business, you could then license the patent - or even sell the patent - to produce revenue from it.
3. Much better Safe than Sorry: If you do NOT apply for a patent, and two or 3 years later you discover that a firm is using your innovation to generate a product or service, you may perhaps regret not patenting the technologies when you had the opportunity to do so.
Is Your Invention Patentable? It is worth a couple of hundred dollars to have a patent attorney or patent agent appear at your innovation and establish if it is worth applying for a patent. If the patent attorney or patent agent believes your invention can be patented, he will help you via the patent application method. A patent lawyer is an lawyer who specializes in what's named "patent prosecution," the approach of applying for and receiving a patent. A patent agent is not an lawyer, but is licensed to practice prior to the US Patent and Trademark Office. To get a patent agent or patent lawyer, use our cost-free Patent Agent and Patent Lawyer Referral Service.
Protecting Your Innovation: As soon as you have applied for a patent, you should certainly use the term "Patent Pending" in your sales literature and description of the item. Undertaking so will basically mark your turf, and it may perhaps discourage competitors from copying your item.
Trademark a New Product? Just as you cannot patent a item - you can only patent the innovation behind the product you can't trademark a item: You can only trademark the name (or brand) of the product. If your new item has a unique name to identify it, you should really most certainly apply for a trademark if for no other reason than to avoid competitors from confusing buyers and stealing sales from you by utilizing the identical or a similar item identification for their competing product.
If you merely call your new product the Model FHJ-604, then no trademark is truly needed. If, nevertheless, you've come up with a name that is one of a kind and memorable, (the Die Hard® battery from Sears is a superb example), you should certainly unquestionably safeguard your new and innovative product identification.
Consult with a trademark lawyer, and if he believes your brand or product name can be trademarked, apply for the trademark. When the US Patent and Trademark Office troubles you a trademark, it will be a registered trademark, so you will then location a "®" right after the brand.
Patent versus Trademark: Although both patents and trademarks are issued by the US Patent and Trademark Workplace, they are honestly unrelated. A product's technologies can be patented though the product's name is not trademarked. Or the product name can be trademarked whilst the product's technologies is not patented. Sears filed for a trademark for "Die Challenging" but there are no patents related to the battery. In spite of the image developed by the brand, there is nothing unique, innovative or distinctive about a Die Hard® battery. 3M filed for a trademark for "Post-it" and also patented the technology behind the product.
If your product utilizes a special technologies, patenting your invention makes sense. If you came up with a marketable name for your new item, trademarking the name makes sense. But each issues ought to be regarded as separately.
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