Patent Filing Services and Patent Search Service

  A provisional patent application is a quick and inexpensive way for inventors  to establish a U.S. filing date for their invention, which can be  claimed in a later-filed non provisional application. A provisional  application is automatically abandoned 12 months after its filing date  and is not examined. An applicant who decides to initially file a  provisional application must file a corresponding non provisional  application during the 12-month pendency period of the provisional  application in order to benefit from the earlier provisional application  filing. 

 A non provisional patent application is examined by a patent examiner  and may be issued as a patent if all the requirements for patent are met. Each year the USPTO receives more than 500,000 patent  applications. Most of the applications filed with the USPTO are non-provisional applications for utility patents.  

A Design Patent-  Issued for a new, original, and

         ornamental design embodied in or applied to an article 

         of manufacture, it permits its owner to exclude others 

         from making, using, or selling the design. Design patents 

         issued from applications filed on or after May 13, 2015 

         shall be granted for the term of fifteen years from the 

         date of grant. Design patents issued from applications 

         filed before May 13, 2015 shall be granted for the term 

         of fourteen years from the date of grant. Design 

         patents are not subject to the payment of maintenance 

         fees.

Plant Patent-  Issued for a new and distinct, invented

         or discovered asexually reproduced plant including

         cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found

         seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or a

         plant found in an uncultivated state, it permits its

         owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling

         the plant for a period of up to twenty years from the

         date of patent application filing ++.  Plant patents

         are not subject to the payment of maintenance fees.

   A Utility Patent-  Issued for the invention of a new and

         useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of

         matter, or a new and useful improvement thereof, it

         generally permits its owner to exclude others from

         making, using, or selling the invention for a period of

         up to twenty years from the date of patent application

         filing ++, subject to the payment of maintenance fees.

         Approximately 90% of the patent documents issued by the

         USPTO in recent years have been utility patents, also

         referred to as "patents for invention".

 A patent search is a service where we search issued patents and published patent applications for inventions that might be considered important “prior art” references when before applying for a patent.  The prior art is anything in the public domain, patented or not patented, that may determine whether an invention is newly novel or already in the "public domain". 

++   Although, the length of utility and plant patent protection

(patent term) was previously seventeen years from the date of

patent grant, utility and plant patents filed after June 8, 1995

now have a patent term of up to twenty years from the date of

filing of the earliest related patent application. Utility and

plant patents which were applied for on or before June 8, 1995, and

which were or will be in force on June 8, 1995, now have a

patent term of seventeen years from the date of patent grant or

twenty years from the date of filing of the earliest related

patent application, whichever is longer.  Utility patents are

subject to the payment of periodic maintenance fees to keep the

patent in force. Patent terms can be extended under some specific

circumstances.  See the U.S. Code Title 35 - Patents for a full

description of patent laws.

    Call Patent Services Experts Today at  772-208-8616