Many Inventors pursue a patent without even knowing what a patent actually is. Researching what a patent is and what it does is the critical first step toward protecting any invention.
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What is a Patent?
A patent is a legal document which allows you to stop other people from making using or selling your invention without paying you a royalty.
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What Can I Patent?
While there are special types of patents offering limited protection, such as plant patents and design patents, when people speak of patents, they are typically referring to utility patents. Utility patent protection is available for machines, compositions of matter and methods tied to, or transforming, matter, as well improvements upon any of the foregoing. Patents can not protect ideas, obvious combinations of pre-existing devices, illegal or immoral matter, pure research, or anything that is simply a novelty or curiosity.
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How Valuable Are Patents?
The value of a patent depends upon several factors: how valuable is the underlying invention, what similar products are already out there, how skillful was your patent attorney in drafting and prosecuting the patent and how well the inventor markets the invention. A patent is really like a safe deposit box for keeping valuables. Patent can not make inventions better and being awarded a patent, even a broad patent, does not even mean that an invention is valuable. There are thousands of patents on inventions that never enjoyed commercial success. The value of a patent depends upon whether the invention will sell. If the invention will sell like hotcakes at a profitable price, a patent would be very valuable. The fact that the patent prevents competitors from entering the market and driving down the price on a hot selling item, means monopoly profits and/or lucrative licensing agreements for the patent owner.
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How Long Does a Patent Last?
Assuming all of the governmental maintenance fees are paid in a timely manner, patents expire 20 years from the date the application for patent was filed. Between the time the application is filed and the date the patent is issued, the patent applicant has no right to stop others from making using or selling the invention.
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What Does a Patent Look Like?
Google Patent Search has millions of patents anyone can search and review. While most people gravitate to the detailed specification and drawings in a patent, the real heart of the patent is the claims. Each claim is a one-sentence description of the invention. A great claim is narrow enough to differentiate the invention over all pre-existing devices, but broad enough to cover obvious modifications competitors might try to circumvent the patent.
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