PATENTS

Invention Gear is dedicated to informing inventors, to help them navigate through the often frustrating challenges associated with inventing, prototyping, patenting, marketing and licensing their invention.

Patents and Patent Strategies

One of the most misunderstood elements to inventing is related to the patent.

Here are the basics to patents:

• There are three major types of patents, the utility patent, design patent, and plant patent.

• The utility patent covers an invention in how it works or operates and is considered the more broad and thus valuable patent.  However, the utility patent is more complicated and thus costs more to file with a patent attorney.

• The design patent covers how an invention looks - its ornamental appearance.  Since this patent is more limited in scope, it is considered less valuable.  Often these patents are easily circumvented since the look of an invention is rather easy to modify.

• The third type of patent is a plant patent, and covers distinct new types of plants.

The Provisional Patent

The provisional application for patent is not a separate type of patent necessarily, but rather a process of filing a patent that can eventually be converted into the utility patent.

The provisional patent is desirable for many inventors since the patent fees are less, the patent filing is less complex, and thus many inventors file the provisional patent themselves.

Basically, the provisional patent gives the inventor one year of patent-pending status in which to further development of the invention, test market, etc.