Posts tagged Thousands Of Dollars

There are two legal ways to protect your invention that you will want to consider before spending thousands of dollars on a patent. But before we get into that, you need to understand how intellectual property rights work.Intellectual Property includes patents, trademarks, servicemarks, and copyrights.A) WHAT IS A PATENT?A patent allows you to exclude others from making or selling the invention but does not grant you the right to make or sell an invention. Generally, the term of a new patent is 20 years, and U.S. patent grants are only effective within the United States.There are three types of patents:1) Utility patents cover processes, machines, articles of manufacture, composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement of something.2) Design patents cover the design or look of an invention.3) Plant patents cover asexually reproduced distinct and new varieties of plants.A utility patent is the strongest patent an inventor can obtain to protect an idea and how it works.A design patent, although significantly less expensive, will only protect the way your invention looks (shape, color, size, etc), not the way and reason it works.B) WHAT IS A TRADEMARK OR… More >>