How to obtain utility patent [Definitive Guide]



Last updated : Aug 25, 2022
Written by : Sung Eagleston
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How to obtain utility patent

How do I get a utility patent?

A utility patent protects the way an article is used and works per 35 U.S.C. § 101. To obtain a utility patent, an inventor must file an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) setting forth certain property claims to be examined. Utility patent applications can have multiple claims.

How hard is it to get a utility patent?

In turn, utility patents are difficult to obtain. For one, they are hard to write, the process may be time consuming and expensive to undertake, and their complexity may make them difficult to understand. Utility patents are issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and last for up to 20 years.

What are the three criteria for utility patents?

To meet utility patent requirements, inventions must be novel, not obvious, statutory, and useful.

How long does it take to get a utility patent?

The average patent approval process takes 25.6 months. A utility patent is the term used to describe what most people think of simply as a patent and is the most common type of patent. Utility patents protect a variety of inventions from duplication by others for 20 years from the application submission.

How expensive is a utility patent?

Since utility patents are the most valuable, the costs to patent them at the USPTO can range anywhere from $6,000 to $15,000. The more complex the invention, the higher the cost.

Are utility patents worth it?

Utility patents are worth it if you have an invention or product that you know you can either sell successfully or profit from by licensing the invention to third parties who will pay you an agreed-upon fee in exchange for being able to use your patented invention.

How long do utility patents last?

A U.S. utility patent, explained above, is generally granted for 20 years from the date the patent application is filed; however, periodic fees are required to maintain the enforceability of the patent.

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.

Why are utility patents so expensive?

Why is a utility patent application so expensive? In most cases, utility applications are substantially more expensive than design patent applications since a greater amount of work is required to draft a utility application.

What does a utility patent cover?

A utility patent protects an inventor's intellectual property. It is the most common type of patent issued. It protects the way an invention works. Anyone who creates an entirely new machine, process, chemical compound, manufactured product, material composition, or method can apply for a utility patent.

What are the five types of utility patents?

Utility patents are grouped into five categories: a process, a machine, a manufacture, a composition of matter, or an improvement of an existing idea. Often, an invention will fall into more than one of these categories.

What are the 4 requirements in patents?

  • The invention must be statutory (subject matter eligible)
  • The invention must be new.
  • The invention must be useful.
  • The invention must be non-obvious.

Can someone steal my idea if I have a patent pending?

What Is Patent Pending Infringement? As soon as you file a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), your invention is "Patent Pending." Once your application is submitted, nobody can steal, sell, or use your invention without your permission.

What are the 3 types of patents?

What kind of patent do you need? There are three types of patents - Utility, Design, and Plant. 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.

What is the difference between a design patent and utility patent?

In general terms, a "utility patent" protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a "design patent" protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171). The ornamental appearance for an article includes its shape/configuration or surface ornamentation applied to the article, or both.

Does a poor man's patent hold up in court?

Even under the old system, i.e., the “first to invent” system, a “poor man's patent” standing alone, i.e, without a patent application, was worthless. You cannot access the court system and ask a judge or a jury to enforce a right that the U.S. Government does not even recognize as a right.

How much does it cost to file a utility patent yourself?

For a simple do-it-yourself utility patent for a small business, you might pay as little as $1,000, and up to $15,000 or more for a complex, competitive patent filed by a specialized patent attorney. To keep your patent application costs at a minimum, do as much as possible of the preliminary work yourself.

When should you not get a patent?

U. S. law provides you will lose your patent rights if you sell, offer for sale, publish, or publicly use your invention more than one year before filing a patent application on that invention.

What percentage of patents make money?

Analysts report that more than 95% of patents are worthless-- not because patents as a class are worthless, but because companies fail to understand one simple principle that makes patents powerful. To understand, it is helpful to take a step back and first consider the differences between strong and weak patents.

How much do inventors make on royalties?

Royalties often range from 2% to 10% of net revenues. Such inventors often choose to form a business and to manufacture and market the product themselves.


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How to obtain utility patent


Comment by Cornell Turay

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 Cornell Turay, have a nice day.
- Sung Eagleston, Staff Member


Comment by alnoW

a utility patent protects an inventor's intellectual property it is the most common type of patent issued it protects the Wayne invention works anyone who creates an entirely new machine process chemical compound manufactured product material composition or method can apply for a utility patent the United States Patent and Trademark Office USPTO also issues utility patents for functional improvements to existing inventions these must be considered non-obvious useful and new utility patents are further subdivided into three categories based on the inventions function electrical chemical and mechanical many inventors trying to patent their intellectual properties start with a provisional patent application unfortunately provisional patent applications are not available online because they are not official patent applications reviewed by the USPTO the good news is since provisional patent applications are never made public you can be sure your patent application stays secret until you file the non provisional application provisional applications merely serve as placeholders to give inventors patent pending status the main sections of a provisional patent application are a written description of the invention Illustrated figures showing what the invention looks like at a cover sheet or transmittal letter that details the inventors contact information because a provisional utility patent application is not a formal patent request it's cheaper to file than a non-provisional application and can be done without legal assistance reasons to consider using a utility patent example most inventors who do file their own provisional utility patent applications do so to save money while obtaining the patent pending protection they need a provisional application protects your discovery or invention and gives you time to decide whether to pursue the patenting process and since you have a full year from the provisional filing date you have extra time to get the money required to pay for the non-provisional patent application design patent example versus a utility patent example a design patent is not the same thing as a utility patent utility patents include new or improved ideas processes machines and manufacturers design patents protective devices ornamental design be sure you know which type of patent you need before going ahead with the filing process hiring a lawyer to file your patent application doesn't have to be expensive it's the best way to be confident that you're approaching the patent process in the right way


Thanks alnoW your participation is very much appreciated
- Sung Eagleston


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