A patent is an intellectual property right granted by the U.S. Government to an inventor “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States” for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted."
Patents are an important part of many academic disciplines. As federal documents and intellectual property, they are a key source of technical information, but are found only occasionally in traditional literature searches and must be searched separately using U.S. Classifications -- keyword searching will result in a limited data set.
Patents can be searched for new areas of research, for ideas to improve existing research, or to see if a product has already been developed.
“A patent document has much more detailed information about a [given] technology than any other type of scientific or technical publication. It is also a unique source of information; on average, seventy percent of the information disclosed in patents is never published anywhere else."
Source: Oklahoma State University Library Patents Guide info.library.okstate.edu/patentsonline
The most common reason to conduct a comprehensive prior art patent search is to make sure no other similar invention already exists. Patents are granted to inventions that are novel (new) and non-obvious. If an inventor believes their invention is new, they must first conduct a prior art search before they apply for a patent.
"Prior art" pertains to any previous mention of the technology or device in the public domain. In other words, prior art searching must also include searching the internet, research databases, and other spheres besides granted patents.
Source: University of Iowa Libraries Patents Guide guides.lib.uiowa.edu/patents
1) Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof;
2) Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture; and
3) Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant
A non-provisional application is the more common of the two.
One advantage of provisional applications is that they are less expensive. However, there are some important things to consider when filing a provisional application. Provisional applications are good only for 12 months. This means that you must file a corresponding non-provisional application during this time period to take full advantage of the extended 12 month time period or face the expiration of your provisional application.
Source: University of Iowa Libraries Patent Guide
Inventions have to meet three main criteria:
Examples:
Source: University of Iowa Libraries Patent Guide