PATENTS--PATHWAYS TO PROGRESS
The Patent Law Helps Power Our Nation's Economy.
By Ken Tarlow
When the United States was still in its infancy, lawmakers realized that a first step toward encouraging economic progress was to offer rewards to inventors. For that reason, patent protection was granted by the American Colonies as early as 1641, before any formal legal system was in place.
In 1790 three years after the Constitution was signed, President George Washington signed the first federal U.S. Patent Act. Although the U.S. Patent Law has been refined since 1790, it has continued to be the stimulus of our nation's economic growth.
The American patent system encourages inventors to proceed with experimentation and to make their inventions. If the invention is patentable under condition of the law, then the inventors enjoys, for specific length of time, the exclusive right to exploit the invention and to realize any profits.
"The patent system," said Abraham Lincoln, "adds the fuel of interest to the fire of genius."
WHAT IS PATENT PROTECTION?
A U.S. patent is a written document that gives an inventor the exclusive right for a limited time to make, use, or sell his/her invention in this country. After a patent has expired, anyone may make, use or sell the invention with the permission of the original patent holder. Patent terms can only be extended by special act of Congress. U.S. patents may be granted to individuals, to joint investors, and to citizens of other countries.
The law grants patents in three categories:
Utility Patents are granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof. A utility patent has a term of 17 years.
Design patents refer to those things that are ornamental in nature and cover the unique, ornamental, or visible shape or design of a non-natural object, even if only on a computer screen. The uniqueness of the shape must be purely ornamental or aesthetic, without being functional. A design patent has a term of 17 years.
Plant patents are granted to any person who has invented or discovered and sexually reproduced any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sorts, mutant hybrids, and newly-found seedlings, other than a tuber-propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state. A plant patent has a term of 17 years.
WHY ARE PATENTS IMPORTANT?
Patents, quite simply, are part of the engine that power's our nation's economy.
From the standpoint of the business community, patents are of utmost importance, since they provide the necessary protection for the newly-developed products or processes.
And at times, basic inventions--protected by patents--have created new industries and given rise to new companies. In fact, the history of the U.S. patent system is laced with the names of inventors who contributed to our country's economic progress--Eli Whitney, Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison, Orville and Wilbur Wright. These inventors, and other perhaps not as well known, have through their work changed the course of human history.
And central to their work and innovative genius is a patent system that provides protection--while nurturing creative thinking, scientific problem-solving and developing those techniques that will pave the way for our future.
The above article was excerpted from Ken Tarlow's MIND TO MONEY, a workbook package that can help you develop a new product from the idea stage to the marketplace. MIND TO MONEY may be ordered from the Dream Merchant at $59.95 plus $4.95 CA sales tax and $5 shipping and handling ($69.90 total). Send orders to the Dream Merchant, 2309 Torrance Blvd., Suite 104, Torrance, CA 90501.
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