These articles include content related to patenting services. Patent Services include legal services for the following 5 steps to patent:
– 1. Prior Art Searches
– 2. Patentability Evaluation
– 3. Patent Application Writing
– 4. Patent Application Filing
– 5. Patent Prosecution
A provisional patent application is temporary placeholder for a later filed non provisional (regular) patent application. Provisional patent applications are not examined, and expire after 12 months (1 year). These temporary patent applications only serve to claim a filing date for the contents.
If your invention can be protected with trade secret(s), then you do not likely need a patent.
If your invention is patentable, and you want to stop others from making and selling your product, then you likely do need a patent.
According to the USPTO, it takes about 22 to 30 months to get patent prosecuted and issued. The current USPTO average wait time is 24 months. In other words, it usually takes 2 or more years from the time a non-provisional patent application is filed to get a patent issued.
A patent writer is a USPTO registered patent agent or patent attorney who writes up a patent application for an inventor looking to file their invention for a patent.
An inventor’s notebook or inventor’s journal is a log book used to track the progress of an invention, along with any new ideas that may arise in the process. If properly kept and organized, this can be an important piece of documentation when supporting a legal claim to the inventions described therein.
When it comes to patents, in simple terms, reduction to practice is making the invention. In other words, it is reducing the invention into a tangible form or taking the invention from thoughts and making it so that it can be used.
To deal with intellectual property after death, usually the choice of how to transfer an inventors interest in a patent or patent application is a will. Executing a will is also a common way for artists and authors owners to transfer interests in copyrights.
A non-disclosure agreement, or an “NDA,” is a contracted agreement between private parties that certain information will remain confidential. NDA’s status as contracted agreements means that they are enforceable by law.
In simplest terms, what can be patented is any invention that is a useful, new, and non-obvious action, thing, or product which is not an abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon.
If the idea is patent eligible subject matter, useful, novel, non-obvious, and a complete and proper patent application is filed and allowed; then, yes, you can patent an idea for an invention without having the actual invention.
