Patents
A patent for an invention is granted by the United States Government to the inventor, giving the inventor the right for a limited period to stop others from making, using or selling the invention without the permission of the inventor. When a patent is granted, the invention becomes the property of the inventor, which - like any other form of property or business asset - can be bought, sold, rented or hired. Patents are generally intended to cover products or processes that possess or contain new functional or technical aspects; patents are therefore concerned with, for example, how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of or how they are made. The vast majority of patents are for incremental improvements in known technology; it has been said that innovation is evolution rather than revolution. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application was filed. Patents issued by the United States are effective only in the United States and its territories and possessions.
Patents
Our firm provides patents services for fortune 500 companies, start-ups and individual inventors. We carefully tailor our patent advice and programs to the individual goals of our clients. We have worked with a wide variety of technologies including: computers, software, electronic circuits, ASIC, telecommunication, internet, opto-electronics, lasers, semiconductor processing, encryption, anti-counterfeiting, mechanical devices, and more.
Patents protect a company's research and development costs, which allows the company to capitalize those costs.
Services
- US patent filings and prosecution.
- Foreign patent filings and prosecution.
- Patent filing strategies.
- Defensive and offensive infringement analysis.
- Licensing.
- Patent litigation support.
- Patent portfolio review and analysis.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can't I just mail myself a certified letter?
The law does not consider a certified letter as evidence that the contents therein were written on the date of the postmark for a variety of reasons, including that the envelope could have been steamed open and the contents added at any time. Please use either an inventor's notebook or use the US Patent and Trademark Offices' document disclosure program to establish your date of invention.
Under the law you have to file a patent (in the US) within one year of a public disclosure or offer for sale. Having a certified letter showing that you invented the item, if it has been more than one year from the first offer for sale or public disclosure, will provide you no protection under the law.
Is my invention patentable even though it is a combination of old items?
Every invention is a combination of known items, since you cannot make something from nothing. For an invention to be patentable it must have
utility, it must be novel and it must be non-obvious.
Utility means the item or invention must have some practical use.
Novelty means that an examiner cannot find one reference, usually a patent, that shows all the elements and connections between the elements in a claim defining your invention.
Non-Obviousness means that an examiner cannot find two or more references that show all the elements and connections between the elements in a claim defining your invention. Note that the examiner has to have some reason for combining the references, such as they are closely related from a technology point of view or one of the references suggests the combination.