All posts by emergingtricities

Independent inventors and small businesses have helped this country take great strides in innovation. Everyone knows a story about one or two inventors who designed world changing technologies in their garage. Amazon, Apple, and Google were supposedly born in garages. The garage genesis story runs deep in American folklore. And every so often, I get the opportunity to meet an independent inventor with their own “garage” who has a great idea and wants to protect it.

A patent provides a right to exclude others from making and using an invention in exchange for instructions on how the invention is made and used. More specifically, a patent offers an inventor the right to exclude others from making, offering to sell, selling, or using a composition of matter, process, manufacture, or machine that falls within the scope of the claimed invention in the patent. Effectively, a patentee can tell people to get off his or her lawn.

A patent can be a valuable tool for an inventor seeking to bring a new invention to market. For small businesses and independent inventors, bringing an invention to market may require seeking out investors or possible licensees who can provide the capital and/or equipment to effectively monetize the invention. Without a patent (or at least a provisional patent or patent application), openly discussing the invention with others could prove fatal to a growing business. But patents are not always easy to come by as discussed on https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/gotconcept/elon-musks-greatest-inventions/.

Patent prosecution (i.e., the process by which a patent is attained) can be expensive. The total costs for prosecuting a patent application, from start to finish, can range in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Inventors need to look beyond merely receiving a patent. Inventors need a plan for harnessing and monetizing their inventions before they have a patent application prepared and filed.

Inventors should begin the patent process by developing a business plan. Preferably, a plan should include at least a description of the market for the invention, an explanation of funding for patent prosecution costs, and a proposal for monetization of the patented goods. Assuming a market exists, how will the patented goods reach the market?

By developing a business plan, an inventor can determine if patent protection is a sound business decision. Perhaps the inventor does not have the capital to invest in patent prosecution. Perhaps, regardless of the patentability of the invention, no market exists for the resulting patented products. A savvy inventor should consider these issues before filing a patent application as explained in https://blog.chron.com/frugalconfessions/2020/03/how-much-can-you-make-from-patenting-your-idea/ post.

A patent can be a valuable asset. However, inventors should stop and consider whether a patent is a sound business decision before filing a patent application.

A patent agent is a person who has passed the patent bar administered by the USPTO, whereas, a patent attorney is a person who has passed the patent bar and the state bar in the state in which the person practices law. Both the patent agency, such as InventHelp, and patent attorney are able to file a patent application on your behalf with the USPTO, but the patent attorney may additionally provide you legal advice in relation to issues related to copyrights and trademarks. If you would like to merely file a patent application, then you may be able to accomplish your goals with a patent agent. But most importantly, be comfortable with your decision in retaining either a patent agent or patent attorney.

The bottom line is, no one can promise you that your idea will become a patent, or that it is guaranteed to be patentable.

A good patent agent or attorney can help you present your invention to the patent office for a patent. A patent agent or attorney will also advise you that filing a patent application is no guarantee that the patent office will issue a patent. And that if you are not familiar with what has been patented in your area of expertise that a patent search might be in order as described on https://southfloridareporter.com/how-inventhelp-can-assist-with-new-invention-ideas/.

But being a patent agent or attorney does not make you a marketing person, in general they can’t tell you whether an invention is valuable or help you market it. As an attorney, a patent attorney may be able to help you license the technology or assign the patent, but not promote it. A patent agent is only licensed before the US Patent Office, so he or she can’t help you with licensing.

There are of course some categories of the inventions that are either in part or wholly excluded from the protection that a patent offers. In many of the countries involved, this will extend to the conventional copyrighted works or mostly any other type of aesthetic creations. This extends to the scheme, rule or method of how you can play a game or do business.

It also extends to a methodical theory or math method. There are other exclusions too, such as the way information is presented, or a PC application or medical treatment methods. There are of course times that certain group can be directly or not directly protected by the actual monopolizing of the advancements and technology that are required for them as explained in https://www.canyon-news.com/how-inventhelp-can-assist-you-as-a-new-inventor/106365 article.

For How Long Will The Patent Actually Be Able To Protect Me?

There are various temporary applications that are available in USA and several other nations too, such as the Australia and the United Kingdom. This will provide the patent holder with temporary protection for up to twelve months that subscribe to the Paris Convention. There are about 154 countries all in all that subscribes to the Paris convention.

Following this, a fully completed application can be lodged in selected nations before the previous 12 month expiry date falls. This will in general provide the patent holder with up to 20 years’ protection from the actual commencement that the filing of the application takes place. It is completely renewable normally in its fourth year in all of the respective countries.

There does seem to be a trend among most Americans to rather obtain their patent rights in the foreign countries by actually inflowing to the PCT, which stands for the Patent cooperation treaty, a system which is explained in greater detail on https://www.econotimes.com/How-You-Can-Benefit-from-Turning-to-the-InventHelp-Experts-1577312.

The conditions for obtaining a patent are well laid out in the patent law of a given country or state. Patent laws even though unique for each country or region, basically govern similar aspects when it comes to the application, consideration and granting of a patent for a claimed invention. All in all patent laws typically require that:

The invention whether a product, methodology of doing something or simply a business idea, be of a subject matter eligible for the privileges of a patent protection. For instance for some theorems, business methods or computer programs, they cannot be granted a patent in US or Canada simply because they lack a physical embodiment, or a tangible result from the provided process and hence lack the subject matter for patenting.

The subject under consideration for a patent must be, at the very least, a novelty subject, with clear signs and aspects of a fresh intentional ingenuity never seen before as stated in https://www.macobserver.com/why-turn-to-inventhelp-with-your-tech-invention-idea/.

For the invention to be granted a patent there has to be a clear inventive process which is non-obvious to any skilled person. This is to say that, having looked at the problem being addressed by the invention, such a person could not or would not have by themselves thought of the claimed invention or seen the steps towards such an invention.

Last of all, the invention be of some valid use in one aspect or another, or the invention be predisposed to an industrial application in one field or another.

These conditions are normally the basis for initial patent considerations, even though other conditions have to be strictly met even if the above conditions are all present for someone to obtain a patent right for his or her creation.

The conditions above are merely substantive and formal conditions like the sufficient disclosure of all aspects of the invention, best mode requirement in the process or, the unity in the process of invention, normally have the last word on whether a patent will be granted or not. All patent applications are subjected to official examinations by patent examiners who check on the conditions aforementioned among others depending on the jurisdiction they are in.

Before filling an application for a patent, an inventor can get opinions from patent agencies, like InventHelp, and attorneys to establish the patentability of his or her invention with regards to conditions for obtaining a patent that have been stipulated.

Common Law

In US, common IP (Intellectual Property) law basically states that all IP designed, created or invented by an employee is actually the legal property of their employer. However, it should be noted that this is only applicable when the employee’s intellectual property or invention is directly related to their line of employment.

Patents & Designs Act

This particular act contains details relating to the Intellectual Property created by employees during the time of their employment. For example, the Patents and Designs Acts state that all contracts that try to obtain the rights to IP created by an employee that is unrelated to the employee’s role at the company is not binding. Also, any contract that tries to secure rights to inventions developed by the employee more than one year after terminating employment with the company is considered to be null and void as you can see from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/inventhelp too.

Trademarks Act

In most cases, the first party to apply for a trademark is granted ownership thereof. It should however, be noted that there are a few instances where this would not apply. For example, if a different party has been using a particular trademark for a while or have established a brand identity using the trademark then the application may not be granted.

Copyright

This is a unique form of protection for intellectual property. This is because copyright will exist automatically and does not need to be applied or filed for. If the product is completely unique and tangible then the author would automatically hold the copyright for it. However, it should be noted that the copyright will not belong to the author if the work was commissioned and paid for. In this case, the work created is considered to be property of the commissioner as explained on https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/gotconcept/the-next-big-thing-in-invention/.

Confidential Info

This is one of the more difficult types of Intellectual Property to protect. This type of IP is controlled by Common Law which was briefly outlined above. It should be noted that the law of the country states that employers will not be able to prevent employees from using information and skills that are essential in their line of work.

Making plastic is fairly straightforward and can be summed up in four basic steps: first prepare raw materials and monomers, then carry out polymerization reactions, next process the polymers into polymer resins, and finally, produce finished products.

Crude oil contains hydrocarbons that make up monomers obtained while refining oil and natural gas. As these hydrocarbon monomers are collected, they then undergo chemical processes preparing them for the creation of new plastics. Next, polymerization produces polymer resins, which emerge as pellets and beads of raw plastic material. At last, these polymer resins are heated; molded, and cooled to produce the products we find surrounding us in our everyday lives.

The processes by which we get our finalized plastic products include extrusion, injection molding, rotational molding, and blow molding. Extrusion involves melting the raw plastic then forcing it through a small aperture until letting it cool with air or with water. In injection molding, pellets are melted in a hopper then forced under high pressure into a cooled mold. Blow molding blows the heated resin with compressed air to create a hollowed out container. Finally, rotational molding rotates the mold while heating the resins so the plastic is dispersed equally throughout the mold.