Congress established the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to issue patents on behalf of the government.T he USPTO administers the patent laws, examines applications for patents to determine if the applicants are entitled to patents under the law, and grants patents when they are so entitled. The USPTO publishes most patent applications at 18 months from the earliest filing date and also publishes issued patents and various other publications concerning patents.
Another function of the USPTO is to record assignments of patents, maintain a search room for the use of the public to view issued patents and records, and supply copies of records and other papers, and the like to appropriate parties.
A non-provisional patent application must be filed in order to have the USPTO begin the process towards granting patent protection. Non-provisional patent applications require more information than provisional patent applications. In addition to a specification and any necessary drawings, they must also include a claim section. The claim or claims describe exactly what is being patented and should be succinctly written. A non-provisional patent application will be considered incomplete unless it has at least one claim.
Non-provisional patent applications must also include a cover sheet that identifies it as a non-provisional application and include the particulars about the inventors, etc. Once the specification, necessary drawings, claims and cover sheet have been submitted, a filing date will be granted. The filing date serves as the date the non-provisional patent application was accepted by the USPTO and will become an important date to note if the application is to become an issued patent.
Since June 8, 1995, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has offered inventors the option of filing a provisional patent application which was designed to provide a lower cost first patent filing in the United States. Provisional patent applications may not be filed for design inventions.
A provisional patent application has fewer parts than a utility or plant application, costs less, and provides a means to establish an early effective filing date in a patent application. Provisional patent applications are NOT examined on their merits and never become patents.
A provisional patent also permits the applicant to use the term “Patent Pending” in connection with the invention. However, after filing a provisional patent application, if the applicant wants to continue working towards obtaining a patent, then the applicant has up to 12 months within which to file a non-provisional patent application. The 12-month pendency for a provisional patent application is not counted toward the 20-year term of a patent granted on a subsequently filed non-provisional patent application which claims benefit of the filing date of the provisional patent application.
The claimed subject matter in the later filed non-provisional patent application is entitled to the benefit of the filing date of the provisional patent application if it has support in the provisional patent application.
(Please refer to the “Types of Patents” section for more information).
Publication of patent applications is required by the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 for most plant and utility patent applications filed on or after November 29, 2000. An applicant may request that his or her application not be published, but only if the invention has not been and will not be the subject of an application filed in a foreign country that requires publication 18 months after filing (or earlier claimed priority date) or under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (the law which governs filing in foreign countries).
As a result of publication, an applicant may assert provisional rights. These rights provide a patentee with the opportunity to obtain a reasonable royalty from a third party that infringes a published application claim if actual notice is given to the third party by the applicant, and if a patent ultimately issues from the application with a substantially identical claim. In other words, damages for pre-patent grant infringement are now available.
The term of the patent shall be generally 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States. However, under certain circumstances, if the application contains a specific reference to an earlier filed application then the patent term shall run from the date the earlier application was filed.