Patent Information

Patent information about the types of patents granted by the U.S. Patent Office can be accessed at http://www.uspto.gov. Generally the three types are: utility patents, design patents and plant patents. Inventors can make a search of patents already granted, text books, journals and other publications to be sure that someone else has not already invented their idea. They may hire someone to do it for them or may do the search on the patent information at the Public Search Room of the US Patents and Trademark Office in Arlington, Virginia, on the PTO web page on the Internet, or at one of the US Patents and Trademark Depository Libraries across the country.

An inventor can start his or her own Patent Search by accessing the U.S. Patent Office Database patent information database at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html The U.S.P.T.O. Patent information Database may be the most popular means of search that can be used by a layperson. The Patent information database only contains "keyword" searchable patent data from 1975 forward. A patent information database, publications and journals is also an important step to assure the patentability of the invention.

One must research and keep in mind some important patent information before filing for a patent application. Important patent information is that patent application has two primary sections: the specification and the claims. The specification is essentially a detailed patent information description of the invention, including drawings if necessary,
showing what the invention does, how it works, and disclosing its advantages over prior art. The claims of the patent application are carefully worded, legally structured sentences that vary in definitiveness that define more closely than the others the patentable novelty of the invention. Patent application almost always contains Patent claims that range from broad ones which define the invention with the fewest details possible to narrow ones which set forth in more detail the specific elements of the invention.
The Patent and Trademark Office is a good source of Patent information for general questions, but an experienced patent lawyer is recommended to provide expert Patent information guidance and advice. Patent can be obtained on "inventions". Inventions include any new and useful machine, process, article of manufacture, composition of matter (such as a new chemical composition), and improvements on any of these things.

Patent information also reveals that certain things have been held not to qualify for patent protection such as copyright, trademarks, abstract ideas, pure mathematical manipulations of numbers and laws or products of nature. Computer software was originally considered not patentable. But recently, patent information has changed on software inventions.