Patents

The Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to enact laws relating to patents, in Article I, section 8, which reads "Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. Before June 1995 a patent was granted for 17 years. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US 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. In exchange for these rights, the inventor discloses all details to our society to further science. Patents were established, not only to protect the rights of the inventor, but to insure that the knowledge underlying the patent was available to further science.

A patent must fall under one of the following statutory classes:

It is important to document in a bound notebook, any lab work or experiment that may lead to a new, useful and unobvious invention. You should document the title, purpose, description of invention with diagrams if appropriate, list ramifications, novel features and advantages of the invention in your documentation. You should sign your name and date at the bottom of an entry and also ask someone else to sign the work, "The above confidential information is witnessed and understood by" name and date.

Searching for a Patent:

The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) now offers World-Wide Web (Web) access to bibliographic and full-text patent databases from 1790 to present. To search for patents in other countries, an online fee database such as the Derwent World Patents Index or European Patents or Japanese Patents can be used. The Chemical Abstract Service also indexes all patents relating to chemical inventions. Patent documents are included in many subject indexes.

The Four Step Strategy Using the U. S. Patent Office Website (www.uspto.gov)

1.    Index to the Manual of Patent Classification

(Site Index à  Manual of Patent Classification à B.  Search US Manual of Classification, using Index to Classification option from pull-down menu)

Begin with this alphabetical subject index to the Manual of Patent Classification. Search on common terms describing the invention and its function, effect, end-product, structure, and use.  Start with a general term or terms, then browse the results for more specific terms. 

Example:  Search on the term trap rather than mouse trap.  When you see the entry for the term trap, scroll down to look at the different types, functions, and uses, which includes the term/idea animal or mouse.    

2.    Manual of Patent Classification

(Site Index à  Manual of Patent Classification)

Every entry in the Index to the Manual of Patent Classification has a class and usually a subclass listed next to it (expressed as 43/58+, sometimes followed by a plus sign to indicate that the subclass has further divisions within it.)    Pay attention to the dot indent—the more dots there are the more specific the subclass is.  Revise the search strategy as needed. 

Example:  The Index says fishing, trapping, and vermin destroying for class 43.  The plus sign means that there are further related subdivisions in class 43.

Think of the dots as an outline format, entries are not stand-along definition related.  So a searcher needs to look at all the related subclasses above the selected subclass number.

3.    Classification Definitions

(Site Index à  Manual of Patent Classification)

In the Manual of Patent Classification, click on the class number to see the entire class and its definition.  To see the specific subclass within the class, click on the          subclass number.  The definitions establish the scope of the class(es) and subclass(es) relevant to the search.  The definitions include important search    notes and suggestions for further searching. 

4.    Browse Patent Titles and Abstracts

(Manual of Patent Classification à Red P icon next to the definition)

When the scope and definition of a class/subclass seems relevant, click on the P to see a list of patents in that class and subclass.  The patents are listed in descending order from most recent to oldest. The patent number appears on the left and the title is on the right.  Both are links to the patent.    

Browse the patent titles and click on the patent number or title to view the abstract (and full text of the patent.)  If the full text is not available, click on the patent number and then click on the red and white Images button at the top of the screen to view a scanned copy of the actual patent.  Print out or note the patent numbers of any patents which look relevant.

If the patent is related or relevant, note the class(es) and subclass(es) to which it has been assigned.  Search these classes/subclasses (Site Index à Manual of Patent Classification, A.  Access Classification Info by Class/Subclass) for further information and prior art.

Note:

To view scanned patents, you will need the AlternaTIFF viewer installed on your computer.  AlternaTIFF is a product of Adobe (makers of Acrobat) and works the same way— all you need to do is have it installed on your computer, and the files will open automatically.  The viewer can be downloaded for free from http://www.alternatiff.com/ .