How to patent a dental product [Explained]



Last updated : Aug 19, 2022
Written by : Raymond Aveline
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How to patent a dental product

What is patent in dentistry?

Dentistry Patents (Class 434/263) Means mounting upper and lower tooth models for relative movement (Class 434/264)

What are the 4 requirements for an invention to qualify of a patent?

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

What are the 5 key stages in the procedure to obtain patent?

  • Understand Your Invention. The first step in how to get a patent is to understand your invention.
  • Research Your Invention.
  • Choose the Type of Protection.
  • Draft Your Patent Application.
  • Wait for a Formal Response.

How do you do the poor man's patent?

The theory behind the “poor man's patent” is that, by describing your invention in writing and mailing that documentation to yourself in a sealed envelope via certified mail (or other proof-of-delivery mail), the sealed envelope and its contents could be used against others to establish the date that the invention was ...

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.

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.

How do I know if my product is patentable?

Go to the official website of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Use the "Full-Text and Image Database" search to verify any present patent applications and pictures. You can find filed applications and pictures for patents filed after 1975.

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.

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.

Can you 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.

Can you sell an idea to a company without a patent?

Yes, you can sell an idea to a company without a patent. However, the company needs to enter into a contract such as a nondisclosure agreement (NDA). Otherwise, they can steal your idea. Unfortunately, many companies will not enter into an NDA.

How much does it cost to patent a product?

A patent attorney will usually charge between $8,000 and $10,000 for a patent application, but the cost can be higher. In most cases, you should budget between $15,000 and $20,000 to complete the patenting process for your invention.

How do I get my idea patented?

  1. Step 1 – Verify the Idea is Eligible For a Patent.
  2. Step 2 – Keep a Detailed Record of Everything.
  3. Step 3 – Make a Prototype.
  4. Step 4 – Apply For a Provisional Patent.
  5. Step 5 – Hire a Patent Attorney.
  6. Step 6 – File Your Patent Application.

When should you patent a product?

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.

How many years do patents last 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.

How much does a 20 year patent cost?

The full cost of obtaining and maintaining a U.S. patent over 20 years is in the range of $20,000 to $60,000. This sum is influenced by the type of technology being patented; the number of claims and drawings included in the application; the number and nature of rejections from USPTO; filing fees, etc.

What is the benefit of owning a patent?

A patent gives you the right to stop others from copying, manufacturing, selling or importing your invention without your permission. See protecting intellectual property. You get protection for a pre-determined period, allowing you to keep competitors at bay. You can then use your invention yourself.

How much is a patent search?

A patent search cost can be anywhere from $100 to $3,000 depending on the complexity of your invention and covers research into existing patents and patent applications. You can use free online tools to do your own search, but an attorney can help you dig deeper.

Is it hard to get a patent?

Since patents are legal articles, they can be somewhat difficult to obtain. Patent applications vary from country to country, depending on what you're trying to get a patent for.


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How to patent a dental product


Comment by Elva Mckeen

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 Elva Mckeen, have a nice day.
- Raymond Aveline, Staff Member


Comment by Ron

okay stephen key here and i've got a successful infinite rights student that has licensed i think a couple ideas and we'll get there in just a minute but first of all chris thank you for coming on our channel stephen thanks so much for having me i'm so excited to be on the show today well first of all where where do you live because i'm looking at this view and it looks fantastic so where do you live thank you come join me uh we recently moved we're in downtown st petersburg florida which you know the nickname in st pete here is a sunshine city and uh we don't get too many cloudy days it stays like this a lot and uh man the weather's just gorgeous yeah i'm jealous i'm thankful to be here well i'm very jealous i live in lake tahoe and i've got snow outside so i'm looking at this going this is what am i doing wrong here so oh [ __ ] i wanted to sneak a palm tree right here you did and it's making me jealous and it's working okay chris first of all before we get before we dive in on your journey of licensing your ideas uh tell us a little bit about yourself let's start there sure uh so i am actually an orthodontist um and uh i have been orthodontist for about six years now and uh previous to that i practiced general dentistry for three years okay um so yeah well that's amazing so you're always fixing things huh i mean isn't that what you do kind of make things work so has that helped you i mean you're an inventor too right i mean absolutely yeah it's funny that i definitely see in the field of dentistry and i don't know if this is where it came from where back in the day dentists were barbers and uh you know whatever else they did um you know we're always looking for better ways of doing things um so you see that a lot with uh dentists and orthodontists that were you know there's not always a plan way of doing things so sometimes we have to go and come up with our own way of doing it okay so let's step back you're you're doing your work you probably notice there's a problem so what invention have you come up with if you can share that a little bit and and why you came up with it and what problem did you see let's everybody's always asking and thank you for sitting over those great um videos that we can show too because everyone's always asking well what is what did he do what did he license so tell us a little bit about it yeah absolutely so you know as an orthodontist i specialize in straightening teeth and correcting bites and we do that by several means the one everyone knows is of course braces but more recently we've been using clear plastic aligners and the big one that everyone knows is the name invisalign right you probably have seen that on tv um so in the last 10 years or so orthodontists have been using the clear plastic aligners more and more to not only straighten teeth but to correct bites as well um so in order to correct bites we often employ rubber bands or elastics to attach from the top jaw to the bottom jaw to help correct the bite relationship so the way this was being done with invisalign was actually taking parts from traditional braces and adapting them to use with the invisalign aligners and we were running into a lot of problems in this fashion where things were breaking patients weren't comfortable they were coming back as emergency appointments because the parts really just weren't intended to be used in the fashion that they were okay um so essentially what we did is um with the invisalign product is that there's a little semi-circle cutout on the molar where you can attach something to where the rubber bands and um traditionally the parts were being put in that little window and uh one day the idea just came to me that hey it's a semi-circle window how come our part isn't shaped like a puzzle piece just to fit right in there it seems like a no-brainer to me wow um so so at that point steve i uh i was working for a great gentleman his name is dr rich k out of morristown new jersey and uh i said hey rich you know we've been running to this problem people coming back with with broken parts um you know patients aren't happy with it what if there were a button as we call the little part that's attached what if there were a button that were just shaped to perfectly fit within the cutout window that invisalign provides us and he said you know what chris that's a great idea you should do something about it so you know weeks would go by at a time and i was so busy working five six days a week that i didn't really have a chance to explore it and uh at that point rich turned to me and and he said you know it's month has gone by what are you gonna do about this idea and i said rich you know what let's go in on this together because i think doing things with a partner is a lot of fun to work on a project um and from there we ran into uh one simple idea the the famous book there on amazon thank you that's all history stephen you know what's amazing that you came up with such a simple solution and you saw it and once you saw it and once you brought in a team member i want to talk about the team member for just a minute because i think it's really important once you saw how simple that was was it easy um going forward was it easy to to reach out to those companies was it easy of course you read one simple idea all right thank you very much and that that gives you a road map but was the process easy because sometimes some industries are hard to get into hard to show your product how about explain that process for our listeners was it easy or not you know there's parts of it that are conceptually easy and then there's parts of it in all practicality that are maybe a challenge or you might have to step outside of your comfort zone to do um you know certainly i would say your first idea is a challenge and i would tell other students don't get discouraged by bumps in the road or roadblocks you just really have to get past those okay um so uh for example when we were pitching our concepts you know like any anyone else we got a lot of no's and you know we were approaching bigger companies that maybe just weren't the right fit for our product um it's very easy i think to get stars in your eyes and approach the biggest companies and think you're going to be a multi-millionaire but you really have to look at the product line like you guys preach see where the proc run will fit and find the right partner for you um so you know it did take us about i would say four to six months to pitch the product before we found our right partner all right you know what's interesting about that i think you're right we all have stars in our eyes that we're going to reach out to the biggest players and and that sometimes that doesn't work right they're hard to work with but some of the other guys that are a little bit more um a little bit smaller still big but a little bit smaller that really need us makes it a little easier to reach out to those guys and they can see the benefit so that was a smart move let's talk about teamwork for a minute because a lot of us inventors we see we think we have to do this by ourselves what were the benefits of bri


Thanks Ron your participation is very much appreciated
- Raymond Aveline


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