The purpose of this booklet is to give users some general information
about patents and the operations of the Patent and Trademark Office. It
attempts to answer many of the questions commonly asked of the Patent
and Trademark Office but is not intended to be a comprehensive textbook
on patent law or a guide for the patent attorney. It is hoped that this
information will be useful to inventors and prospective applicants for
patents, to students, and to others who may be interested in patents by
giving them a brief general introduction to the subject.
Additional information may be obtained from the publications listed
under the sections “Publications of the Patent and Trademark Office”
and “General information and correspondence.” Also, information is
available on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Web site at:
_http://www.uspto.gov_. The Patent and Trademark Office does not
publish any textbooks on patent law, but a number of such works for
the specialist and for the general reader have been published by
private concerns.
What Is a Patent?
A patent for an invention is a grant of a property right by the
Government to the inventor (or his or her heirs or assigns), acting
through the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of the patent shall be
20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed
in the United States or, if the application contains a specific
reference to an earlier filed application under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121 or
365(c), from the date the earliest such application was filed, subject
to the payment of maintenance fees. The right conferred by the patent
grant extends only throughout the United States and its territories and
possessions.
The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the
statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from
making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the
United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What
is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or
import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for
sale, selling or importing the invention. Most of the statements in the
preceding paragraphs will be explained in greater detail in later
sections.
Some persons occasionally confuse patents, copyrights, and trademarks.
Although there may be some resemblance in the rights of these three
kinds of intellectual property, they are different and serve different
purposes.