December 21, 2009
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
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U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are tasked with issuing patents to inventors which give them the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling their invention in the United States. In exchange for this... |
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are tasked with issuing patents to inventors which give them the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling their invention in the United States. In exchange for this grant, the inventors must disclose their invention to the public in the form of a patent application.
There are three types of U.S. patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office which are: utility patents, design patents and plant patents. To be patentable, an invention essentially must meet the following requirements set by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office which are: (1) useful, (2) novel, and (3) non-obvious. The novelty requirement of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is often consider the entry test for patentability. The probably more demanding, non-obviousness requirement is harder to objectively define. The typical way that an examiner in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office shows obviousness is to cite a number of prior art references that, when combined as suggested by possibly another prior art reference, contain all of the elements of the applicant's invention.
Patents are issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to any person who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement to an already patented invention. Practically anything made by humans, subject to the conditions and requirements of the law, is patentable. A patent is granted by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office upon the invention, not merely upon the idea or suggestion of a new invention.
The job to determine the patentability of an invention fell on the shoulders of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office examiner. After the patent application has been filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the examiner carefully reviews the application in order to determine the invention's patentability. After the application has been filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office it is assigned to a patent examiner. If the patent applicant succeeds in his bid for obtaining patent, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office confer on the patent owner the right to exclude others from making, using and selling the invention in the U.S. for a term which is normally twenty years for the date of filing of the patent application, unless extended under certain exceptional circumstances. On the other hand, if the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office examiner decides that the invention is not patentable, the applicant, with the lawyer's assistance, may appeal the decision to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Board of Appeals. If the Board's decision is unfavorable, a further appeal may be taken to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
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