Invention Ideas – Do You want a Patent Before Selling Invention Ideas to Businesses?

A United States Patent is essentially a “grant of rights” for modest period. In layman’s terms, it is a contract in which the The united states government expressly permits only one or company to monopolize a particular concept for every limited time.

Typically, our government frowns upon any type of monopolization in commerce, as being a the belief that monopolization hinders free trade and competition, degrading our economy. A good example is the forced break-up of Bell Telephone some years ago in the many regional phone companies. The government, in particular the Justice Department (the governmental agency which prosecutes monopoly or “antitrust” violations), believed that Bell Telephone was an unfair monopoly and forced it to relinquish its monopoly powers over the device industry.

Why, then, would the government permit a monopoly the actual world form of a patent? The government makes an exception to encourage inventors to come forward with their beats. In doing so, the government actually promotes advancements in science and technology.

First of all, it should be clear to you just how a patent gives “monopoly.
patent idea “A patent permits the who owns the patent to stop anyone else from producing the
what to do with an invention idea product or using begin the process covered by the patent. Think of Thomas Edison and his most famous patented invention, the bulb. With his patent for your light bulb, Thomas Edison could prevent any other person or company from producing, using or selling lights without his consent. Essentially, no one could competing him in the sunshine bulb business, and thus he possessed a monopoly.

However, in order to receive his monopoly, Thomas Edison had to give something in recovery. He needed to fully “disclose” his invention to your public.

To obtain as a famous Patent, an inventor must fully disclose what the invention is, how it operates, and optimum way known with the inventor to permit it to be.It is this disclosure for the public which entitles the inventor to some monopoly.The logic undertaking this is that by promising inventors a monopoly as a result for their disclosures to the public, inventors will continually strive to develop new technologies and disclose them to your public. Providing these for the
how to patent an idea or product monopoly allows them to profit financially from the new technology. Without this “tradeoff,” there would include few incentives to develop new technologies, because without a patent monopoly an inventor’s hard work brings him no financial reward.Fearing that their invention would be stolen when they attempt to commercialize it, the inventor might never tell a soul regarding their invention, and the islands would never benefit.

The grant of rights under a patent lasts on a limited period.Utility patents expire 20 years after they are filed.If this hadn’t been the case, and patent monopolies lasted indefinitely, there is the serious consequences. For example, if Thomas Edison still held an in-force patent for the light bulb, we could need to pay about $300 to acquire a light bulb today.Without competition, there’d be little incentive for Edison strengthen upon his bulb.Instead, once the Edison lamp patent expired, everyone was free to manufacture light bulbs, as well as several companies did.The vigorous competition to function that after expiration of the Edison patent resulted in better quality, lower costing light designs.

II. Types of patents

There are essentially three types of patents which you should be aware of — utility patents, design patents, and provisional patent applications.

A utility patent applies to inventions which have a “functional” aspect (in other words, the invention accomplishes a utilitarian result — it actually “does” something).In other words, the thing may different or “special” about the invention must be for getting a functional purpose.To meet the criteria for utility patent protection, an invention must also fall within at least one of pursuing “statutory categories” as required under 35 USC 101. Keep in mind that just about any physical, functional invention will fall under at least 1 of these categories, and need not be concerned with which category best describes your invention.

A) Machine: think about a “machine” as something which accomplishes a task brought on by the interaction with the physical parts, like a can opener, an automobile engine, a fax machine, etc.It is the combination and interconnection of these kinds of physical parts with which we are concerned and which are protected by the patent.

B) Article of manufacture: “articles of manufacture” should be thought of as things which accomplish a task very much like a machine, but without the interaction of various physical parts.While articles of manufacture and machines may seem to be able to similar in many instances, you can distinguish the two by thinking of articles of manufacture as more simplistic things which routinely have no moving parts. A paper clip, for example is an article of manufacture.It accomplishes an action (holding papers together), but is clearly not a “machine” since it is a simple device which does not rely on the interaction quite a few parts.

C) Process: one method or another of doing something through one or more steps, each step interacting in somehow with a physical element, is called a “process.” An operation can be a new method of manufacturing a known product or can also be a new use for a known product. Board games are typically protected as a process.

D) Composition of matter: typically chemical compositions such as pharmaceuticals, mixtures, or compounds such as soap, concrete, paint, plastic, and such can be patented as “compositions of matter.” Food items and recipes are often protected in this fashion.

A design patent protects the “ornamental appearance” of object, compared to its “utility” or function, which is safe by a computer program patent. In other words, if the invention can be a useful object that includes a novel shape or overall appearance, a design patent might offer appropriate a security program. To avoid infringement, a copier might have to set up a version doesn’t look “substantially similar to the ordinary onlooker.”They cannot copy the shape and appearance without infringing the design patent.

A provisional patent application is one step toward obtaining utility patent, where the invention may not yet be prepared to obtain a utility patent. In other words, this seems as though the invention cannot yet obtain a software application patent, the provisional application may be filed the actual planet Patent Office to establish the inventor’s priority to the invention.As the inventor continues to develop the invention and make further developments which allow a utility patent with regard to obtained, then the inventor can “convert” the provisional application to a full utility implementation. This later application is “given credit” for the date as soon as the provisional application was first filed.