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 prior to June 8, 1995, and which were or will be in force after 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.
In your written patent application you must fully describe your invention to such a degree that a person skilled in the same field as the invention could make or use that invention. A person skilled in the same field as the invention should be able to read your patent application and understand it. The inventor must be able to make claims about his/her invention in clear and definite terms.The part of a patent application that describes and reveals your invention is called the specification and includes various types of descriptions, claims, and drawings depending on the type of invention and type of patent involved. Remember, ideas alone cannot be patented. In other words - you can't just write, "I have an idea for a new alarm clock." You must be able to describe how your alarm works so that an expert in alarm clocks would understand how it would work and that it would indeed work. It's like a recipe ... a good cook should be able to produce your invention based on your patent. As a novice, to file your first patent application yourself is often unwise. However, you could write your own descriptions and then pass them over to your attorney. The attorney could use your writings as a guide and a time-saver, and that will save you money. You should present your inventor's logbook, prototype, and any prior art searches to the attorney. You must write a complete and thorough description of your intellectual property as you cannot add any new information to your patent application once it is filed. You can only make changes to the subject matter that could be reasonably inferred from the original drawings or description.
How can you separate "marketing fluff" from a true "value proposition" in this world of TMI (too much information)? This is not an easy question to answer, and we don't claim we have some magic crystal ball. We do, however, believe that our patent search tools are designed in such a way as to provide objective and transparent results to allow you to Discover, Measure, Compare, and Connect business opportunities. Many patent analytics tools are available. So what makes us different? Simple. We take the complexities and reduce them to meaningful visualizations. We take the complex legalese and simplify it to interpretable business intelligence to better understand the analytics of it.
Although anyone can claim to inventor or create something (e.g., Al Gore created the Internet), the reality is that an idea needs to be carefully considered in context of the law. If you are serious about protecting your invention, you should contact a patent attorney or patent agent. Applying for a patent, and its subsequent patent prosecution process, does cost money. You may see ads for low-cost services to file a patent on your behalf. Such solutions are viable if your goal is to boast to your friends that you patented something. However, if you have real-world business ambitions, it is imperative that the person writing the claims of your patent is a well-qualified lawyer. The adage "you get what you pay for" is very true in the intellectual property community. Realistically, a single patent is going to minimally cost you around $10K for the application fees, legal fees to write the claims, and so on. You want to find a legal professional that is a subject matter expert in your domain (whether it is IT, manufacturing, mechanical engineering, biotech).
"A new approach to customer intimacy is critical in the new economic environment and this necessitates a stronger commitment than ever before. Organizations that are best at extracting previously undiscovered insights from vast amounts of customer information have a huge advantage in deepening existing connections and creating new relationships. (1) Make customers part of your team. (2) Solicit customer wants. (3) Co-innovate and interact with customers in new ways. (4) Deliver true process transparency. (5) Tap the value of limitless data. (6) Translate data into insight into action that creates business results. (7) Share information freely to build trust and improve customer relationships." According to IBM 2010, Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the Global CEO Study. Patent attorneys and IP counselors are key stakeholders in the innovation economy. We want to empower you with our patent-analytic tools that enables you to have more meaningful (and more profitable) relationships with your clientele. IP Street was founded and is currently directed by Lewis Lee, a well-known and respected attorney in the IP space. He understands the challenging of operating a law firm in the economically-distressed digital age. Not only has he helped ideate ways you can directly use our patent search tools to do things smarter, quicker but he has also directed IP Street to help patent lawyers connect to potential customers.
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