Patent Flowchart
The Patent Office has a nice flowchart on its website that describes the patenting process. It could be helpful to give the inventor an understanding of the road in front of him when he comes up with an invention and…
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Expediting the Patent Examination Process for Age or Health
Patent applications typically take quite a while to become actual patents. It’s currently taking between 2 and 4 years just to get the First Office Action from the Patent Office. There are a few ways to speed up the examination…
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Enlighted Designs bridges copyright-patent gap with lighted clothing
Fellow Harvey Mudd College grad Janet Hansen, who is President and Chief Fashion engineer of Enlighted Designs, has found, perhaps inadvertently, a way to combat the inability to get copyright protection in clothing design. While you generally can’t protect the…
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Can an Abandoned Patent Application be Revived?
Did you miss a deadline with the Patent Office or pay the wrong fee? Doing these things, and some others, can cause your application to become abandoned. An abandoned application isn’t necessarily dead. You have a couple of options. First,…
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Does an inventor need to be secretive about disclosing an idea to a patent attorney?
I’ve been getting a recurring question lately: “Will you sign this Non Disclosure Agreement before I tell you about the invention I want you to write a patent application for?” Sometimes, the question is phrased, “how much do you charge…
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First Office Action Pendency
Patently-O did the work, and I’m happy to reprint it. It’s no secret that getting a patent is a lengthy process: Current Patent Office estimates show that it has been taking, on average, between 1.95 and 3.98 years for the…
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How to Protect your Invention with a Patent
I’ve posted a basic description of the patenting process, from inventing to maintaining the patent. The video is a visual explanation of how an invention forms, how the patent application is prepared, filed, and processed, and what to do when…
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How to Use an NDA to Protect your Invention
When you’ve come up with a new invention, and you need some help developing it – whether it be the designing, prototyping, or manufacturing of the invention – you need to use an NDA. Non-Disclosure Agreements are a crucial way…
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Patent Reform Act of 2009
Have an invention you want to patent, or are you about to file a patent application? Change may be in the works at the USPTO. Today, the Senate reached a “tentative agreement” over a patent reform bill that has been…
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Error in MPEP 2141
The online version of MPEP 2141 states, in Section II: The factual inquiries enunciated by the Court [in Graham] are as follows: (A) Ascertaining the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art; and (B) Ascertaining the differences between…