United States patent law

Patent law (patents for inventions)
Overviews
Patents History Economics Societal views
Processes
Application Prosecution Licensing Infringement
Patentability
Patentable subject matter Novelty Utility Inventive step and non-obviousness Industrial applicability Person skilled in the art Prior art Inventorship
Additional requirements
Sufficiency of disclosure Unity of invention
By region / country
Europe Japan Canada United States Australia
Subject-matter
Biological patent Gene patent Business method Tax patent Chemical patent Software patent
See also
Category Glossary

United States patent law was established "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" as provided by the United States Constitution. For several years Congress implemented these protections as a "first to invent" system, in contrast to all other national patent laws. However, the 112th Congress replaced the "first to invent" system with the "first to file" system, by enacting the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act on 16th September 2011, to be implemented with effect from March 2013. The provisions of the law are laid out in Title 35 of the United States Code (U.S.C.) and give authority for the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This system is permitted by Article One, Section 8(8) of the U.S. Constitution which states:

The Congress shall have power...To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

In the U.S., a patent is a right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, exporting components to be assembled into an infringing device outside the U.S., importing the product of a patented process practiced outside the U.S., inducing others to infringe, offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent, and a few other very carefully defined categories. Thus, merely thinking about an invention, or drawing a diagram, is not an infringement. Research for "purely philosophical" inquiry is not an infringement, but research directed to commercial purposes is - unless the research is directed toward obtaining approval of the Food and Drug Administration for introduction of a generic version of a patented drug.

Under current US law, the term of patent is 20 years from the earliest claimed filing date (which can be extended via Patent Term Adjustment and Patent Term Extension). For applications filed before June 8, 1995, the term is 17 years from the issue date or 20 years from the earliest claimed domestic priority date, the longer term applying.

Substantive law

Under Title 35 of the United States Code, the patentability of inventions is defined under Sections 100-105. Most notably, section 101 sets out subject matter that can be patented; section 102 defines novelty and loss of right to patent; section 103 lists what constitutes non-obvious subject matter.

The United States Constitution, Section 8, allows Congress to grant patents: "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" without limiting such rights to product developers. Just as there is no legal requirement that owners of real property develop their vacant land, there is likewise no legal requirement that patent owners develop their inventions.^{[citation needed]}

Procedure

Pre-grant publication (PG Pub)

The United States Patent and Trademark Office publishes patent applications 18 months after they are filed. This time limit can be extended under certain circumstances for an additional fee. The applications are published before a patent has been granted on them.

Enforcement

International Trade Commission (ITC)

In the United States, a patent holder may wish to pursue a cause of action in the ITC instead of, or in addition to the court system.^{[citation needed]} In contrast to courts who have a wide range of remedies at their disposal, the ITC can only do one thing when it comes to patent infringement: grant or deny injunctive relief by ordering to keep infringing products from being imported into the United States.^{[citation needed]} In some cases, this may provide a quicker resolution to a patent owner's problems.^{[citation needed]}

Patents as property

According to Article One, Section 8(8) of the U.S. Constitution, Congress is granted the power to secure for limited times to ... inventors the exclusive right to their ... discoveries. Therefore, patents implementing that provision would have to grant temporary rights residing only in the inventors. Nonetheless, patents are now treated like property rights, so that they may be sold, licensed, mortgaged, assigned, transferred, given away, abandoned, actively developed, or held as investments without being developed. Just as there is no legal requirement that owners of real property develop their vacant land, there is likewise no legal requirement that patent owners develop their inventions.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• History of United States patent law
• List of United States patent law cases
• Timeline of United States inventions

Concepts

• All elements test
• Article of manufacture‎ (type of claim)
• Assignor estoppel
• Composition of matter‎ (type of claim)
• Continuing patent application
• Design patent
• Doctrine of inherency
• Doctrine of repair and reconstruction
• Duty of candor
• Duty of disclosure
• Exhausted combination doctrine
• First-sale doctrine
• Flash of genius
• Inequitable conduct
• Information disclosure statement (IDS)
• Interference proceeding
• Non-obviousness
• Machine (patent)‎ (type of claim)
• Markman hearing
• Method (patent)‎ (type of claim)
• Non-provisional patent application

• Novelty
• On-sale bar
• Patent infringement under United States law
• Person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)
• Petition to make special
• Printed matter (patent law)
• Prosecution disclaimer
• Prosecution history estoppel
• Provisional application
• Reduction to practice
• Reexamination
• Reissue application
• Small entity status
• Software patents under United States patent law
• Statutory Invention Registration
• Submarine patent
• Term of patent in the United States
• Transitional phrase
• United States Defensive Publication
• Utility
• X-Patent

Legislation

• 28 USC 1498. This statute allows the US government to override patent protection (or contract another entity to do so) for public use purposes. The patent owner can sue for limited compensation.
• America Invents Act (2011)
• American Inventors Protection Act (AIPA)
• Bayh-Dole Act
• Invention Secrecy Act (1951)
• Patent Act of 1790, First Patent Act - April 7, 1790
• Patent Reform Act of 2005
• Patent Reform Act of 2007
• Patent Reform Act of 2009
• Plant Patent Act (1930)
• Title 35 of the United States Code

Other

• American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA)
• Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI)
• Confederate Patent Office
• European patent law
• Japanese patent law
• List of top United States patent recipients
• Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP)
• United States copyright law
• United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC)
• United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)
• United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
• United States Patents Quarterly (USPQ)
• United States trademark law

External links

• United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) web site:
  • Consolidated laws (pdf, 1MB)
  • Glossary of patent terms
  • Search US patents
• US code, Title 35