Want To Know About US Patent?
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency that provides patent protection to businesses and inventors for their inventions, in the Unites States. The US Patent and Trademark Office or the USPTO offers trademark registrations for intellectual property and product identification. The organization has been responsible for awarding patents within the country since 1975.
The US Patent and Trademark Office is based in Alexandria, Virginia. The office has been completely funded by the fees charged for patent and trademark processing since 1991. Jon W. Dudas, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, is the current head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He was nominated to the position in March 2004, by President George W. Bush, and was appointed on July 30, 2004.
In cooperation with the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO), the USPTO is pursuant to trilateral agreements. The USPTO also acts as an International Searching Authority, an International Preliminary Examination Authority, and a Receiving Office for international patent applications filed in accordance with the Patent Cooperation Treaty.
Every year, the USPTO issues thousands of patents to individuals and companies, all over the globe. Howsoever, the first ten thousand patents issued between 1790 and 1836 (known as the X-Patents) were destroyed by fire. Not more than three thousand of these patents were recovered and then re-issued.
The US Patent and Trademark Office is also responsible for examining applications for the registration of trademarks. Once approved, the trademarks are then registered on either the Supplemental Register or the Principal Register. The registration depends upon whether the appropriate distinctiveness criteria are met by the mark.
The patents issued by the USPTO are time bound. They are valid only up to a certain period. This simply implies the individual, obtaining the patent, can make sole and full use of the idea only up to given time for commercial gains. The patent viability in US is twenty years from the time an application is put forth, or seventeen years from the grant of the patent, whichever period is longer.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office strives to make its patents highly accessible to everyone. That is why the website of the office is open to the general public. The website contains a list of patents granted earlier. The office even publishes a weekly official gazette. It includes information on the patents given in the previous week.
The website provided by the USPTO also contains a free search engine. Under this search engine, the patents are classified according to their respective categories. The free search engine offered by the US Patent and Trademark Office also enables an individual to conduct a patent search, and ensure the patent has not been granted earlier, before applying for the patent.