Types of Patents Granted by the USPTO
By Lisa Parmley
Inventions may qualify for a utility, a design or a plant patent as set out by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This article attempts to provide you with an overview on each of these patent types.
Examples of utility based inventions are everywhere. Most mechanical objects fit under this category. A rocket engine, paperclip and a new drug are all examples of utility based inventions. The variety between these objects is vast, but they all fit under the same category; those with utility.
Design patents are those that incorporate a design into an object of manufacture. A good example is a new design for a headboard.
As you can guess, plant patents are those covering new plant varieties. But there are some stipulations with plant patents. Plants that have been bred are acceptable, while plants growing naturally in the wild will never qualify. Oddly enough, plants that are sexually reproduced also never qualify. Only those that are asexually reproduced (i.e., they are reproduced by making a cutting, layering, grafting or inarching) qualify for a patent.
About the author
Copyright © 2005 Lisa Parmley - Registered Patent Agent
Review free articles on inventing and patenting: Patent Your Inventions from http://www.FreeArticlesAndContent.com
|
|
Copy This Article
For FREE!!!
You can use this article and copy it on your own website
for free! All you have to do is make sure the article
is copied with no changes and includes the "About
The Author" text. Also please ensure that all url's
are hyperlinked according. Thank you. |
Link To This Article - And We'll
Link Back To Your Website!
You are more then welcome to link to this article! All
you have to do is copy this webpage address from the
address bar and create a link on your website. Please
use the title of this article for your link text. Please
get in contact once you have linked to this article
and we'll link back to you! Thank you. |
|
|
|
Other great articles from this category...
|
Related Sites
|
|
