The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.
A patent attorney is an attorney who has the specialized qualifications necessary for representing clients in obtaining patents and acting in all matters and procedures relating to patent law and practice, such as filing an opposition. The term is used differently in different countries, and thus may or may not require the same legal qualifications as a general legal practitioner.
In the United States, a design patent is a form of legal protection granted to the ornamental design of a functional item. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers and computer icons are examples of objects that are covered by design patents.
In the United States, under current patent law, the term of patent, provided that maintenance fees are paid on time, is 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S. or international (PCT) application to which priority is claimed.
Under United States patent law, a provisional application is a legal document filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), that establishes an early filing date, but does not mature into an issued patent unless the applicant files a regular non-provisional patent application within one year. There is no such thing as a "provisional patent".
Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others from using a new technology. Specifically, it is the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, inducing others to infringe, and/or offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent.
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) is a body within the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) responsible for hearing and deciding certain kinds of cases involving trademarks. These include appeals from decisions by USPTO Examiners denying registration of marks, and opposition proceedings filed against trademark applications. TTAB panels hear hundreds of claims each year asserting that trademarks should not be registered because they are generic, disparaging, or confusingly similar to existing marks. Such challenges to registration are initially considered by trademark examining attorneys, whose judgment may be appealed to the TTAB. Decisions of the TTAB may, in turn, be appealed to a United States district court, or the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) is published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for use by patent attorneys and agents and patent examiners. It describes all of the laws and regulations that must be followed in the examination of U.S. patent applications, and articulates their application to an enormous variety of different situations. The MPEP is based on Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which derives its authority from Title 35 of the United States Code, as well as on case law arising under those titles. The first version of the MPEP was published in 1920 by the Patent and Trademark Office Society.
A hologram trademark is a non-conventional trademark where a hologram is used to perform the trademark function of uniquely identifying the commercial origin of products or services.
A concurrent use registration, in United States trademark law, is a federal trademark registration of the same trademark to two or more unrelated parties, with each party having a registration limited to a distinct geographic area. Such a registration is achieved by filing a concurrent use application and then prevailing in a concurrent use proceeding before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ("TTAB"), which is a judicial body within the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO"). A concurrent use application may be filed with respect to a trademark which is already registered or otherwise in use by another party, but may be allowed to go forward based on the assertion that the existing use can co-exist with the new registration without causing consumer confusion.
In former United States patent law, a statutory invention registration (SIR) was a publication of an invention by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The publication was made at the request of the applicant. In order for an applicant to have a patent application published as an SIR, the following conditions had to be met:
- The application must disclose the invention in sufficient detail that another person of ordinary skill in the art can make and use the invention without undue experimentation ;
- The application complies with the requirements for printing, as set forth in regulations of the Director of the patent office;
- The applicant waives the right to receive a patent on the invention within such period as may be prescribed by the Director; and
- The applicant pays application, publication, and other processing fees established by the Director.
In the United States, an Office action is a document written by an examiner in a patent or trademark examination procedure and mailed to an applicant for a patent or trademark. The expression is used in many jurisdictions.
In order to be registered as a patent agent or patent attorney in the United States, one must pass the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) registration examination, officially called the Examination for Registration to Practice in Patent Cases Before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and known informally as the patent bar.
The copyright status of the content of patent applications and patents may vary from one legal system to another. Whether scientific literature can be freely copied for the purpose of patent prosecution is also a matter for discussion.
The Acceptable Identification of Goods and Services Manual is a directory maintained by the United States Patent and Trademark Office outlining the different categories of goods and services recognized by that office with respect to trademark registrations, and setting forth the forty-two international classes into which those goods and services are divided.
A trademark classification is a way the trademark examiners and applicants' trademark attorneys arrange documents, such as trademark and service mark applications, according to the description and scope of the types of goods or services to which the marks apply. The same trademark or service may be classified in several classes, and some countries permit several classes to be registered in the same document. There are fees ordinarily associated with each classification, whether for initial application or later renewal.
A patent application or patent may contain drawings, also called patent drawings, illustrating the invention, some of its embodiments, or the prior art. The drawings may be required by the law to be in a particular form, and the requirements may vary depending on the jurisdiction.
An unregistered or common law trademark is an enforceable mark created by a business or individual to signify or distinguish a product or service. A common law or unregistered trademark is legally different from a registered trademark granted by statute.
