Independent inventors who want to save money may attempt to file a patent application on their own, but once they reach the part about writing claims… well, it’s not easy. Not even for professional patent practitioners. Knowing how claims work is a useful tool for DIY inventors because, in our opinion, it helps you understand …
To find out whether our invention is novel, or not already invented, we do what’s called a prior-art search. “Prior art” is any previous public disclosure of an invention just like yours. This includes anything published or disclosed anywhere in the world. Prior art is any evidence that your invention is already known. The USPTO …
Did you know that many inventors can get free help with their patent applications? The USPTO’s Patent Pro Bono Program helps underserved populations with free legal services. Since 2015, the Patent Pro Bono Program has provided about 95,000 hours of free legal services to independent inventors and small businesses. This has led to about 2,000 …
The USPTO’s “Path to a Patent” series continues tomorrow with a workshop about common mistakes in patent-filing. Learn about filing a patent application, what to do after you’ve filed, and common mistakes inventors make during the process. Common mistakes we see include: failing to list all inventors; filling out the forms incorrectly; not reading the …
Almost every event in the life of a patent entails fees. Application fees, issue fees, fees for filing a Continuation, and the topic of this blog post: maintenance fees. Maintenance fees are paid to the USPTO to maintain a granted utility patent. (Design patents and plant patents are not subject to maintenance fees.) A patent-holder …
How do we avoid infringing others’ patents while obtaining the strongest patent possible for our own invention? When we focus on protecting our intellectual property, we sometimes fail to consider the possibility of infringing on someone else’s patent. A common belief among inventors is that The US Patent and Trademark Office protects inventors from infringing. …