Sunday, February 8, 2009

Protect Your Patent

By reklicom

There are several points to be taken into account when planning to receive a patent for your invention; and patent analytics imply the basic information when it comes to searching for various patents that have already been obtained by other people. The documented data will be used in order to learn everything about the already existing patents because this is actually the main condition to be applied when determining whether a person is going to receive a patent or not. Some basic issues are to be acknowledged before a person starts to search for the existing papers; for instance, the concept approach should be well defined in order for the search to be successful.

Even the technical content of every invention will be added to this record in order for the user to have a clearer picture of all the inventions that have already been patented. The abstracts are to be used in order to find whether your description of the invention matches one of the given descriptions that are to be found in the patent records.

If you find one that is exactly like your idea, keep in mind that the first application for that patent will be granted over the newer one. It does not mean you cannot apply for it. If you can improve on your idea, then go ahead and apply. If their application is turned down for some reason like lack of detail, etc., your patent could still be issued.

All the existing documents will have the same things in common, namely the so called concepts that will help you find whether there are similar inventions or not. Therefore, your future search will consist in finding the documents that use a given combination of various concepts; this combination must be present in every case in order for you to find relevant information that may help you obtain the wanted patent.

Remember that you need to consider patents disclosing inventions that might not be just like yours, but are similar to yours. You should note all these and then study them. Check through the existing patents and take notes of the most relevant ones. You should even print these out and begin building a stack of relevant prior art.

In this article I will try to help you answer those questions and offer a little more insight into the whole patent application process, including how to research patents to see if there are ideas already patented that are similar to yours.

The first thing you need to do is define your idea onto paper. Use as much detail as possible. You are more likely to receive a patent when you include a lot of detail and avoid anything that is vague or too broad in concept.

Once you have done this, go to http://www.uspto.gov Click the link, on the left at the writing of this article, which says patents. You are not ready to apply for your patent yet, so scroll down to where it says, "Online Patent Searches".

Thanks to the internet, it is fairly simple to get started on your own patent search. The USPTO has a very detailed website with patent searching capabilities. Best of all, it is free. That is the number one place to begin your quest in determining if your invention is novel. The USPTO's website makes it simple to check out issued patents all the way back to the 1970's. You may access older patents from their archives, but depending on the nature of your invention, you may not need to look that far back (technology has its limits you know!).

Use the link there that reads, "Advanced Search". Type in all the terms you can think of that relate to what you want to patent. Use the option that reads, "1976 to present", as anything patented before that date will not matter in most cases. - 21151

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