Why Should I Apply for a Patent?
Your inventions are your own intellectual property. You have the right to use your intellectual property to your advantage as long as your actions are consistent with federal, state and local laws. Often, people want to use their intellectual property to make money and so they seek to protect their inventions by seeking a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In order to qualify for a patent, federal law requires that a person invent or discover “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof…” An idea with specific plans on how to implement that idea is not patentable. However, there are advantages to applying for a patent if you have new and useful plans for a process, machine, manufacture or other composition of matter.
The Advantages of Applying For a Patent
If your patent application is approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, then the U.S. government provides you with the right to:
· Exclude others from making, using or selling your invention in the United States; or
· Importing your invention into the United States.
These rights typically run for a period of 20 years from the date on which you filed your patent application with the government.
While a patent does not provide you with the right to make, use or sell your invention, it does significantly limit your competition should you seek to create and market your invention. That means that only you, and those whom you authorize, can share in the possible financial benefits of creating, marketing and selling the item for which you obtained the patent.
For many individuals and companies who create new and useful inventions, the limitation on competition means that they will earn more money than they otherwise would have earned without the limitations created by patent law. Therefore, individuals and companies can spend more time and money investing in research and development because they know that the time and money will be well invested if they obtain a patent and exclusive rights to make, use and sell their new product. Further, companies and individual inventors can create value by licensing the rights to their invention to companies better suited to bring them to market.