How to establish a patent [Pictures]



Last updated : Sept 8, 2022
Written by : Zachary Sprenkel
Current current readers : 7265
Write a comment

How to establish a patent

How much does it cost to get a patents?

A patent can cost from $900 for a do-it-yourself application to between $5,000 and $10,000+ with the help of patent lawyers. A patent protects an invention and the cost of the process to get the patent will depend on the type of patent (provisional, non-provisional, or utility) and the complexity of the invention.

How do you create a patent?

  1. Keep a Written Record of Your Invention. Record every step of the invention process in a notebook.
  2. Make Sure Your Invention Qualifies for Patent Protection.
  3. Assess the Commercial Potential of Your Invention.
  4. Conduct a Thorough Patent Search.
  5. Prepare and File an Application With the USPTO.

What are the 5 requirements of a patent?

  • The innovation is patentable subject matter. Patentable.
  • The innovation is new (called 'novelty')
  • The innovation is inventive.
  • The innovation is useful (called 'utility')
  • The innovation must not have prior use.

Can anyone create a patent?

Utility Patent Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or compositions of matters, or any new useful improvement thereof. By far, most patent applications filed at the USPTO are utility applications.

How long is a patent good for?

Patent protection is granted for a limited period, generally 20 years from the filing date of the application. Is a patent valid in every country? Patents are territorial rights.

Do patents expire?

Patent Expiration Utility patents expire four, eight, and 12 years after issuance of the patent if the maintenance fees are not paid at these points in time. The patent actually expires at 3.5 years, 7.5 years, and 11.5 years, but there is a six-month grace period in which to pay the maintenance fee.

What are the 4 types of patents?

  • Utility patent. This is what most people think of when they think about a patent.
  • Provisional patent.
  • Design patent.
  • Plant patent.

What is poor man's patent?

A poor man's patent is essentially writing out a description of your invention and then mailing that written description to yourself. This postmarked envelope supposedly acts to create the date of your invention as the date this written description was postmarked.

How can I get a patent with no money?

The Patent Pro Bono Program attempts to match inventors with registered patent agents or patent attorneys. These practitioners volunteer their time without charging the inventor. However, the inventor still must pay all fees that are required by the USPTO; these cannot be paid by the practitioner.

How do I know if I can patent my idea?

Check out the official website of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and click on the Full Text and Image Database. Search for existing patents, images and patent applications by using words that describe your idea.

What can you not patent?

  • literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works.
  • a way of doing business, playing a game or thinking.
  • a method of medical treatment or diagnosis.
  • a discovery, scientific theory or mathematical method.
  • the way information is presented.
  • some computer programs or mobile apps.

When should you patent an idea?

Under U.S. patent law, you must file your patent application within one year of the first offer to sell your invention, or within one year of your first public use or disclosure of your invention. This means that you must determine the first offer to sell date, or the first public disclosure date.

What happens if someone patents your idea?

Can Someone Patent Another Person's Idea? The only way you can sue for patent infringement is if you have a patent through the USPTO. 102(f) states that in order to apply for a patent, you must be the inventor. Proving this can be difficult and costly.

How long does it take to get a patent?

In the United States, it takes an average of 24 months from the filing of a patent application to get a patent.

Can I patent an idea without a prototype?

Many inventors wonder if they need a prototype prior to patenting an invention. The simple answer is “no'. A prototype is not required prior to filing a patent application with the U.S. Patent Office. While prototypes can be valuable in developing your invention, they can also be costly.

What happens to patent When owner dies?

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, you can pass your patent to your heirs. You would do this in your estate planning. You will need to complete an assignment document that will legally allow the rights and ownership of the patent to pass onto your heirs upon your death.

Can you sell a patented product?

The U.S. Supreme Court in a recent ruling has opined on the rights of a purchaser to use and resell patented products. The patent system give the patent owner the right to exclude others from making, using, and selling the patented invention, for the life of the patent.

Can you sell your patent?

Selling a patent allows the inventor to generate income that will help pay the bills or finance other promising ideas. Selling a patent outright also eliminates the huge financial outlay required to start up a business based on a new product.

What can be patented?

Nearly anything can be patented. Machines, medicines, computer programs, articles made by machines, compositions, chemicals, biogenetic materials, and processes, can all be the subject matter for a United States patent.

What is an abandoned patent?

When a patent application is abandoned, prosecution stops and the application will not mature into an issued patent. As a consequence, the patent applicant will not obtain a patent grant, which would otherwise provide federal rights to preclude others from practicing the invention sought to be patented.


more content related articles
Check these related keywords for more interesting articles :
How to copy news without copyright
How to trademark a name for a business
Why intellectual property rights should be protected
How to get trademark licence
Intellectual property crime on the darknet
How to copyright a photo in india
How to get around copyright infringement
Why is it important to trademark your brand
How to transfer copyright vhs to dvd
Trademark use requirements mexico
How to create a brand image
How to download copyright protected videos
What does it mean when you trademark something
How to conduct a thorough patent search
Canada trademark office cipo








Did you find this article relevant to what you were looking for?


Write a comment




How to establish a patent


Comment by Maryland Lebon

what's up guys so today I'm going to be talking about how I got my first patent at 17 and also I'll be explaining how you can apply for your patent and get a patent on your product so this is what we're talking about a United States utility patent and I'm gonna be talking about the way I did it and I'll be only talking about what I know so I'll show it to you here this is the patent that was issued you could see there's a barbell there and this is the product that it was issued on the snap flips barbell collars so I'm gonna tell you about how I got my patent so the process that I follow - then I'll explain step by step what you would do to do the same thing so I started off with not a lot of money had like two hundred bucks and I was in high school and had this idea of a barbell collar that you could use to hold your weights in place so I had made some prototypes this is one of the prototypes here and I thought it was a good idea so wanted to file a patent on it and I wanted to file a provisional patent because a provisional patent is basically a time holder and it says hey I'm here I have this idea and I want to file a patent for it but I'm not quite ready yet so filing a provisional patent sets your spot in line and then you have 12 months from that date to actually file a real patent that can protect your product or idea so the way that I did it was I got some software online it was 150 bucks at the time now it's only 99 dollars for a year so it's called patent wizard put it up right here and you go on patent wizard you download the software and you basically it asks you a bunch of questions like extended response questions about your idea how you make it what it looks like how it works you fill in all that stuff and then I don't know after a couple hours of doing it it prints out your patent for you and at the time I printed it out I mailed it into the USPTO the United States patent trademark office and my spot was saved in line now what you'd actually do is you would make an account online download it to your computer from the software and submit it online if you send it in through the mail now they actually charge you an extra two hundred bucks so it's not worth it so now you would just do it online anyway after I filed my provisional patent I started developing the product more making sure that there was a need for this type of product making sure that people wanted to buy it and I did find that people wanted to buy it so at that point I said okay we need to file an actual utility patent on this product I found some lawyers that were really nice and wanted to work with me and we went through a whole I mean it was a couple months turning our provisional patent that I wrote which I wouldn't necessarily recommend writing your own patent your own provisional patent but I didn't have another option at the time so that's what I did so we took my provisional patent and then we turned it into a utility patent filed it in the office and we actually got it it usually takes between one and three years to get your utility patent issued we filed for expediting the whole patent process it was we paid $6,000 for it looks like it's only a thousand to two thousand dollars now so must have gotten cheaper and what that does is instead of waiting between one and three years it gets done in one year so provisional patents one year and then you file your utility patent after that and in one year you have either an answer yes we have a pet we'll give you a patent on this or no we're not going to give you a patent on this because someone's already made something like this before so after I think it was like eight months or something we had heard back they said we think that you could get a patent on this but you there's some stuff that you would need to change in order to get your patent so we made a couple tweaks to the patent and then it finally got issued we paid some more fees and then we were finally issued a United States utility patent which protected the product and we were basically ready to launch and start selling the product on the market so that's how I did it super quick little you know story about it there's a lot more to it but now I'm going to talk about how you can actually do it so the first step in the process when you're trying to file your patent and the way that I'm going to do this is I'm gonna tell you to file a provisional patent first if you want to go directly in the utility patent more power to you you do that but this is how I did it so first you do a patent search you could go on uspto.gov and you search patent search and then you basically type in descriptive words about what your product your idea or whatever you're trying to patent what it is and you look it up you you look at there you see if anyone has made something or gotten a patent on something similar look on Google see if there's anything similar to what you're doing if you find something similar to what you're trying to patent you're not gonna be able to patent it because someone's already thought of it before in order to get a patent you have to think of something completely new that no one has created before it's never been publicly posted anywhere and no one knows how to do it you're you're the first one that's making this thing so that's the big thing you need to do a patent search and if that checks out and you don't find anyone that's made anything similar then you can go on to the next step you need to figure out what kind of patent you're gonna file you file your provisional first then 12 months past now you're getting ready to actually file your real patent what you need to decide is is it going to be utility is it going to be a design is it going to be a plant patent if it's a product or a new way to do something it's most likely going to be a utility patent so we're gonna be talking about utility patents then what where do you want to file a patent is there just gonna be in the US or is it going to be globally I don't know about filing patents globally so I'm not going to talk about it I'm just going to talk about filing a patent in the US it's gonna be a non provisional patent because you've already filed your provisional patent and the twelve months has passed and it's come time you know maybe like 11 months is passed and it's now it's time to file your actual patent your non provisional utility patent so then you need to decide are you going to expedite it or are you not going to expedite it if you expedite it it's going to get done in one year if you don't expedite it it can still get done in one year but it could take up to three years so that's a choice that you're gonna have to make which comes with a fee the fee is between 1,000 and 2,000 dollars - depends on if you're considered a micro entity or a small entity then who should file it so for the provisional patent I filed that by myself if you have the cash it's probably better to have an actual lawyer file your provisional - but if you don't have the cash and you don't have another option file the provisional yourself but once you get to the actual non provisional once you get to your u


Thanks for your comment Maryland Lebon, have a nice day.
- Zachary Sprenkel, Staff Member


Comment by Sachiko

welcome Adventures and patent pioneers intellectual product and the realm of patents is a new and exciting frontier for you you've had your flash of genius now you can hopefully go on your renovation journey to seek a patent for your unique and inspired creation in other words if you think you may have an invention worth patenting then filing for a patent would be your next logical step forward on the road to joining the pantheon of patent holders the United States Patent and Trademark Office is the right place to start if you're thinking about filing a patent application but aren't sure how to do it the USPTO is your one-stop shop you can find the answer to all your particular patent questions right here let me walk you through an overview of the patent application process so you can begin to get your ducks in a row you know what I mean you can prepare for what comes next each step of the way before you go too far understand that you can't just patent any idea you have to have an invention for a process a machine something that can be manufactured or even a composition of matter or an improvement to an existing inventor your invention should have a purpose or solve a problem maybe it is smaller faster less expensive why every or environmentally friendlier than anything else like it of course an invention can't defy nature everyone knows that if you want to make a prototype that's one way you can show the invention in useful and really works but it's not required consider making a business plan before you even think about filing ask yourself who will buy your invention what their buying habits are and how much they will pay for it many resources are available to help you study the market start with the Internet and public libraries you can read magazines and journals and even do a search of already published applications and packets checkout business usa.gov for additional resources the searching that you did to prepare your business plan can also help you with a patent search for more assistance you can also visit us PTO headquarters your nearest USPTO satellite office or the closest patented trademark Resource Center and hey you can visit us online too because before you file a patent application you should make sure somebody else didn't think of it first did you really invent something new no need to reinvent the wheel you did invent something new or improved well look at you go if it really is novel and not obvious then you may be ready to file a patent application so that your intellectual property is protected if you file a patent application all by yourself the USPTO recognizes you as a pro se inventor there are resources like this video designed to help you you can go it alone but keep in mind the process requires persistence and determination consider the help of a registered patent agent or attorney to assist you the application process is likely to go more smoothly and with fewer mistakes if you seek representation I'm just saying you've made it this far in understanding the patent process and there are still a few more important things to consider it's not one size fits all for a patent in fact there are three types of patent applications utility plant and design a utility patent is for an invention such as a process a machine something that can be manufactured or even a composition of matter plant patents are for plants that are a sexually reproduced and design patent covers the ornamental design of an object or what's applied to it for design patents your invention will be protected for 15 years and for plant and utility applications in general your invention will be protected from the date of filing for 20 years say what that's right 20 years that is of course if a patent is granted visit u.s. PTO gov to learn more about the types of patents now my brave young patent pioneers it is time to check out the checklist provided hey hold up I'm not done yet so now that we've navigated to this challenging innovation journey you might feel like an expert or not so much and if you're not feeling it you can call the inventors assistance center at 1-800 PTO nine one nine nine or check the electronic filing system page at the USPTO website and you'll find descriptions and examples for each section along with contact info and pertinent patent particulars so patent on my fellow inventors patent on you


Thanks Sachiko your participation is very much appreciated
- Zachary Sprenkel


About the author