The Davenport Public Library is designated as a depository under the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
A U.S. patent gives you, the inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. A plant patent gives you additional rights on the “parts” of plants (e.g., a plant patent on an apple variety would include rights on the apples from the plant variety). What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on your patent, you may initiate legal action. U.S. patents are effective only within the U.S. and its territories and possessions.
IP is creative works or ideas embodied in a form that can be shared or enable others to recreate, emulate, or manufacture them.
Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets are different types of IP. The USPTO grants patents and registers trademarks, while copyrights are registered by the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress.
Legally, a utility patent may cover “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” A design patent may cover “any new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture,” and a plant patent may cover a “distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber-propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state,” invented or discovered and asexually reproduced.
So, for a patent to be issued, your invention must meet four conditions:
Patent law defines the limits of what can be patented. For example, the laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas cannot be patented, nor can only an idea or suggestion. Other restrictions include the patenting of inventions exclusively related to nuclear material or atomic energy in an atomic weapon. However, the subject matter that can be protected by patents is vast and varied. For example, even some methods of doing business may be patented.
You (the inventor) or your legal representative may apply for a patent, with some exceptions. These include if the inventor has died, is legally incapacitated, refuses to apply, or cannot be found. Two or more people inventing something together may apply for a patent as joint inventors. A person (e.g., a company) to whom an inventor has assigned an invention, or to whom the inventor is obligated (e.g., contractually required) to assign an invention, may also apply for a patent.
If you only contribute money but are not the inventor or co-inventor, you cannot be named as an inventor or co-inventor in the patent application. Furthermore, if you are not the inventor, and the inventor(s) did not assign the invention to you or does not have an obligation to assign the invention to you, you may not apply for a patent. USPTO employees cannot apply for or own a patent unless they inherit it.
How Do I Apply for a Patent?
Patent Process Overview
In filing a patent application and paying required fees, the USPTO provides forms and an electronic filing tool. You may also wish to find a patent attorney or agent to help draft the required description of the invention and claims, and any required drawings.
Find out how to apply for a patent here.