U. S. Patent Office

The U.S. Patent Office carefully reviews the patent application in order to determine the invention's patentability. Upon submission of a patent application to the U.S. Patent Office an Examiner reviews the application and prepares an opinion as to whether the application complies with the applicable rules and regulations, and whether the invention is indeed "patentable." Typically, the U.S. Patent 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 protection, the applicant must respond to each of the U.S. Patent Office Examiner's rejections and objections detailed in the Office Action, amending the application accordingly.

U.S. Patent Office can only verify that the description and claims per description by their inventors or patent lawyers are new, unique, and not obvious to the Patent and Trademark Office. The U.S. Patent Office examiners do not verify that an invention works or that it can ever be, or never has been, built. They try only to correctly verify that the invention is patentable and has not been patented in the U.S. before.

In making a patent application, there are some specific requirements one need to comply with. An application must include a specification, including a description and claim(s); an oath or declaration identifying the applicant(s) believing to be the original inventor(s); a drawing when necessary; and the filing fee. Prior to 1870, a model of the invention was required as well. Today, a model is almost never required.

To be patentable, an invention essentially must meet the following requirements set by U.S. Patent Office which are: (1) useful, (2) novel, and (3) non-obvious. The novelty requirement of U.S. Patent Office is often consider the entry test for patentability. The probably more demanding, non-obviousness requirement is harder to objectively define. The typical way that an examiner in U.S. Patent Office shows obviousness is to cite a number of prior art references that, when combined as suggested by possibly another prior art reference, contain all of the elements of the applicant's invention.

Inventors can conduct patent search on patents already granted through, text books, journals and other publications to be sure that someone else has not already invented their idea. The first place to look is at the Public Search Room of the U.S. U.S. Patent Office in Arlington, Virginia, on the PTO web page on the Internet, or at one of the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries across the country. The patent cost can be very high for some people which the U.S. Patent Office charges a minimum of about $4,000 over the life of the patent.