Patent Trademark Office

The Patent Trademark Office carefully reviews the application in order to determine the invention's patentability. Upon submission of a patent application to the Patent Trademark Office an Examiner reviews the application and prepares an opinion as to whether the application complies with the Patent Trademark Office applicable rules and regulations, and whether the invention is indeed "patentable."

The patent cost can be very high for some people which the U.S. Patent Trademark Office charges a minimum of about $4,000 over the life of the patent. A patent application submitted to Patent Trademark Office must contain: (1) a written description of the invention; and (2) claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the invention.

1. The description pertains to a detailed account of the structure, operation, and function of the invention. It should be written clearly enough to "enable any person skilled in the art…to make and use" the invention. The description must also set forth the "best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention."
2. The claims define the "metes and bounds" of the intellectual property and must be carefully drafted to avoid the teachings of the prior art while providing maximum legal protection for the invention. As the legal definition of the invention, the claims are also key to answering questions regarding infringement.
Typically, the Patent Trademark Office Examiner asserts various objections and rejections to the claims of an application in a written document referred to as an Office Action. If the applicant wishes to continue to pursue Patent Trademark Office patent protection, the applicant must respond to each of the Patent Trademark Office Examiner's rejections and objections detailed in the Office Action, amending the application accordingly.

Most of the rejections by the Patent Trademark Office Examiner is due to the "patentability" criteria of the invention. There are three basic statutory "patentability" requirements. To be patentable, an invention must be:
1. useful
2. novel and
3. nonobvious

Inventors should conduct a patent search beforehand in order to verify if the invention is patentable and has already been issued a patent. This is a very necessary requirement before lodging the application to Patent Trademark Office. An inventor 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 can start the search at the Public Search Room of the U.S. Patent Trademark Office in Arlington, Virginia, or on the Patent Trademark Office web page on the Internet, or at one of the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries across the country.