Patents

The best-known areas of Intellectual Property are Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights.

A Patent protects things which have some sort of function. Before filing for a patent application, you need to have Greenberg & Lieberman perform a patent search to find out if your idea is patentable. A patent search provides you with patents similar to your invention, and in applying for a patent, you explain to the Patent Office why your invention is not obvious in light of those inventions.

The best-known patent application is the Utility patent . In applying for this type of patent, one aims to protect the functionality of an invention. A prime example is a broom. It has the function of allowing dirt and other things on the ground to be gathered more easily than if a person would merely use his hands.

Then there is the Provisional patent application . This application is a tool which has been added to the patent attorney's bag of tricks quite recently. It is an application which is designed to allow a person to file for an application quickly because it does not have claims. Claims are the legally operable part of a patent application, though other parts of the application (in particular the detailed description) may be used for purposes of claiming a priority date. The Provisional patent application has a lesser filing fee than the Utility patent application and will expire if it is not upgraded to a Utility patent application within one (1) year of filing. The Provisional patent application does give the inventor(s) a priority date and patent pending status - this alone is a goal for many inventors.

Many things are patentable under the rubric of the Utility or Provisional patent application other than the common "thing that has a function." Over the last few years software has become patentable without the necessity of including the computer upon which it is going to run. Recently, business plans have also become patentable.

Then there is the Design patent application . With this application, one may protect the look of an invention when that look is separable from the thing itself. The best example of a Design patent application is a bicycle rack in which the steel tube to which the bicycle will be locked looks somewhat like a snake. The concept of having a fixed locking mechanism for a bicycle is not patentable because it is known already; and such an invention would receive a 102 rejection (we will go into the different rejections later). But what is "protectable" is the look of the bicycle rack.

The latter three patent applications are the best known and comprise the majority of all patent applications filed. But there is another type of patent application, which though not as well known, is a powerful tool in the right situation. This application is the Plant patent application . This application will protect the invention of a way of making a new type of plant which has been created via asexual reproduction and is a new or original variety of plant.

Outside of the US is the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application . This is an application which is filed under the treaty for purposes of receiving a priority date in all countries which are signatories to the treaty. Most American, Asian and European countries are signatories. The PCT application will be looked at by the PTO more quickly then a regular Utility application, in some cases.