How to Get a Patent in Texas

To get a patent in Texas, you must first go through the patent application process. The requirements for filing are the same as in other states.

What Is a Patent?

A patent is a property right that United States authorities grant to inventors and proprietors. A patent provides the proprietor permission to exclude anyone else from making, utilizing, promoting or importing a patented idea.

Different Types of Patents

There are design patents and utility patents. Design patents protect the look or appearance of an article of manufacture, whereas utility patents cover the idea or the thought behind the article. Utility patents may be directed towards strategies/processes or towards equipment. For instance, methodology claims in utility patents are likely to be used to guard chemical processes to create medication. Equipment claims would usually be used to guard the construction of a mechanical gadget.

Make Sure Your Invention Qualifies for Patent Protection

You can't get a patent simply on a thought. In your patent application, it is essential to present how your invention works, and your invention has to be new. This implies that it has to be totally different in some necessary way from all earlier innovations.

What Types of Technology Are Eligible for a Patent?

Patents can protect mechanical gadgets, strategies of performance (akin to manufacturing), software programs, and even residing organisms akin to vegetation or genetically modified organisms.

To verify that your invention is new, it is advisable that you search all the related developments in your discipline.

Patent searches are time consuming but necessary. You can begin your analysis on the Web; however you might also need to go to a Patent and Trademark Depository Library, where you'll be able to search earlier patents and get assistance from a librarian. While you search, you may discover different innovations similar to yours.

In your application, it is best to present how your invention improves upon or is totally different from these earlier developments.

Prepare and File an Application With the USPTO

When you file with the USPTO, you'll be able to both file a full-blown regular patent application (RPA) or a provisional patent application (PPA). All that's required to file a provisional patent application is a payment ($65 for micro-entities, $130 for small entities, and $260 for big firms), an in-depth description of the invention, including tips on how to make and use it, and a drawing. Submitting a nonprovisional patent application begins the examination course on the USPTO that is needed for getting the precise patent.

Keep a Careful Record of Your Invention

Describe and diagram each side and each modification of the invention and the way you came up with the idea for it. Relying on the invention, you may additionally need to construct a prototype. Can you sell or market your invention before a patent is issued? As soon as a patent has been filed, there's often no reason not to proceed with advertising and sale of a product. By submitting an application, you may be considered "patent pending" usually for a number of years, so there's no reason to delay advertising and production.

What Is the Cost of Obtaining a Patent?

The simplest patent applications cost between $4,000.00 and $5,000.00 to draft, and complicated applications can cost more than $20,000.00. Nearly all applications are filed for between $10,000.00 and $15,000.

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