If you are an inventor seeking at applying for your 1st patent, probabilities are you will be seeking what is known as a "utility patent."
Also identified as a "full utility" patent or a "idea" patent, the utility patent represents over 85% of the roughly 3,500 patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) each week.
Like the other two categories of patents (design and plant), the utility patent does three fundamental factors:
o It requires novelty, usefulness and non-obviousness
o It excludes anybody else from generating, applying or selling your invention for a certain quantity of years and
o When it expires, it makes it possible for other parties than the patent holder to generate and sell the product.
If you are applying for a utility patent, your invention have to fit inside 1 of four categories:
o apparatus
o method or method
o composition of matter, or
o article of manufacture.
The U.S. government considers an apparatus to be a device with moving parts. Points like electric pencil sharpeners, fax machines, blenders and even the infamous mousetrap fall into this category. An apparatus can be totally original, or it can just combine two or significantly more existing products that result in a new use.
Are you a chemist who has invented a new chemical procedure or, maybe, a pc specialist who has written a new software program plan? If so, your product would fall into the technique or process category which covers something that describes a procedure from start to finish.
If someone asked you what a new prescription drug and cleaning solutions have in common, would you know the answer?
Each fall into the composition of matter category for utility patents. Unique formulas for almost everything from film processing solutions to biotechnology to lower-cholesterol butter can be protected by way of utility patents.
If you appear about your property or office, you will quickly see various products which fall into the fourth utility patent category, write-up of manufacture.
Look in the silverware drawer. Knifes, forks and spoons all fall into this next category. Take a look at the items on your desk. You will discover paperclips, letter openers and the plastic cover for your PDA. Check out your bathroom, and you will notice factors like combs, tooth brushes and soap dishes.
So, what do all of these factors have in common?
None of them have moving parts. And, if you have improved or redesigned any of these items, your patent application will specify them as articles of manufacture.
Once granted, the utility patent supplies you 20 years from date of application to "create, promote and profit from your distinctive thought"©.
1 caveat: In order to assure your rights, you need to be confident all maintenance fees are paid throughout the 20-year life of your patent.
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