Patent utility

Utilities Utility ofinvention Utility patents Uvaretin [58449-06-2] Uvarum... 

Utility Patents. Utility patents are granted to individuals only who have invented or discovered any new and useful method, process, machine, manufacture, or matter composition. These patents must be useful to society (have utility). A utility patent has a total time limit for exclusive use by the inventor of 17 years. 

In USA a patent is awarded to the person first producing an invention, not necessarily who first applied for a patent. The opposite policy prevails in the rest of the world with USA policy probably changing in order to achieve worldwide patent law harmonization. USA utility patents (machines, equipment, etc.) in the past where good for at least 17 years after date the patent was issued. As of 1995, the patent is good for 20 years after the date the patent is filed (prior to the date it is issued) that eliminated those who would file for a patent and let it drag out for many years prior to being issued when it would be needed for infringement, etc. 

The third invention reported by the authors [19] was related to sulfur oxidation, but the invention was not patented. It was only registered with the Statutory Invention Registration (SIR). What this means is that, it is not a utility patent as the rest of the documents considered in this Chapter, rather a SIR registered document containing the specification and drawings of a provisional application filed for a patent, which has not been subjected to examination yet. It is issued by the PTO, if the applicant, among other requirements, waives the right to receive a patent on the invention within such period as may be prescribed by the Commissioner. The invention such as this, on which a statutory invention certificate is published, is not a patented invention for most purposes. 

CASSIS USPTO USPTO Office of Electronic Data Conversion and Dissemination CASSIS, the Classification and Search Support Information System of the USPTO, comprises three subfiles CASSIS/BIB, bibliographic information for utility patents from 1969 and for others from 1977 CASSIS/CLASS, USPTO classification by patent number of class/subclass CASSIS/ASSIST, index to U.S. Manual of Classification U.S. Manual of Classification, Class Definitions IPC, U.S. Classification Concordance Manual of Patent Examining Procedure Attorneys/Agents Roster, etc... 

Richard Koehn I do not think the universities have any idea how intellectual property laws relate to the general research mission of the institution or its desire to exploit the fruits of that research through commercialization. It is completely different when you are doing research in chemistry on a particular area and you see some particular applications in mind, but you are actually utilizing patented procedures or processes in that research. Have you violated the patent The question of a patent violation in research laboratories is extremely sophisticated, and most technology transfer offices at universities do not know that the issue exists or how to think about it. Now that the universities are thinking about exploiting the commercial value of a project, they need to ask what process was used to produce the fruits of that project. That is a different level of sophistication. 

Although the patent process begins with the filing of a patent application with the USPTO, the types of patent applications can vary according to whether the application is for a design, plant, or utility patent. As chemists, we probably will be concerned... 

Each country has its own laws for patents, which means it is important to remember that countries differ in the length of protection time given the name used for the term patent and even about what can be patented. In the United States, patents are sometimes known as utility patents, but note that some countries provide utility models which are similar to patents, but are not as inventive and which also have a shorter protection period. Utility patents are also called petty patents (or Gebrauchsmustern in German). In the UK, it is neither possible to patent a new plant or animal, nor a method of treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy or a method of diagnosis. However, this is not the case in all countries e.g., in the United States, plants can be patented. 

A patent can be enforceable from the time it is issued till it expires, not necessarily 20 years. New rules provide some guarantee that the enforceable term of a utility patent will be at least 17 years, and that some royalties may be collectable when a patent is published before it is issued. Design patents are only good for 14 years and only cover the ornamental appearance of the item, and not its structure or functionality. 

The most common and well-known type of patent is the utility patent. Utility patents cover functional features of an invention with utility as a key requirement. Inventions that qualify for utility patents include articles of manufacture, compounds or compositions of matter, manufacturing processes, and methods of using articles, compounds, or compositions. 

Applicants can now file a provisional application (described in more detail in section 3.4). Such a provisional application cannot be converted into a utility patent application or mature into a utility patent. A utility patent application can be filed within 1 year of the provisional application and claim benefit of the provisional application filing date such a utility patent application can, of course, mature into a utility patent. 

A related database is provided through Chemweb the IFI Claims database (http //www.chemweb.com/databases/ claims) provides text-searchable information on claims in US patents from 1950 (chemical patents) and 1963 (utilities patents) to the present day. As well as non-specific search methods, the interface on Chemweb permits searching by Boolean combinations of title, inventor, exemplary claim(s), assignee, patent number, application number, US patent classifications or international patent classifications (IPCs). Search terms may be stemmed for additional flexibility. 

The scope and limitations of protection afforded by these alternatives are clearly set forth in the statutes. The following is a very brief outline of similarities and differences in comparison to standard utility patents. 

There are a limited number of issued patents and published patent applications relating to the use of recombinant DNA techniques in higher plants or in organisms which infect or otherwise are associated with them. It is expected that with the Hibberd decision, increased use will be made of the utility patent system to obtain coverage for plants per se, despite the alternatives provided by the Plant Patent Act and by the PVPA. 

Researchers coming out of academia these days will probably already be familiar with good notebook practices and might have dealt with a few patent procedures or maybe even invention disclosures before. But working in industrial drug discovery will give them something of an education in utility patents. At times these can seem to be as inscrutable as if written in Sanskrit. 

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