Are you considering applying for a patent? You've come to the right place...
We specialize in preparing, drafting, and filing both U.S. and international patent applications for technologies involving electronics, software, telecommunications, medical, and mechanical devices. We are offering competitive rates, a free initial consultation, and a free initial inventor disclosure meeting. Additionally, if you are local to San Diego County, we can schedule meetings with you at your own home or office at no extra charge.
We pride ourselves in drafting high-quality patents in order to maximize both the value and strategic advantage of our client's intellectual property portfolios.
What advantages are there in obtaining a patent for my invention?
A patent grants the patent owner the right to exclude others from making or having made, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the invention as defined in the patent's claims. Nine key advantages associated with patents are listed here:
1. Filing for/obtaining a patent may make it substantially easier for you to raise capital for your business.
The fact that you are currently seeking (or have already obtained) a patent for one or more of your inventions is a strong signal to investors and venture capitalists that your proposal is more than just a bunch of fluffy imaginative talk. Since a patent application requires a detailed written description of how to make and how to use your invention, the fact that you have fleshed out your invention to a Patent Examiner in sufficient written detail indicates to the investment world that you are serious about your invention.
2. The prospect of economic return for infringing activities.
If you successfully obtain an issued patent, you have a right to sue any infringing parties for monetary damages. You do not necessarily have to prove that you lost profits as a result of the infringing activity, since the patent damages statute (35 U.S.C. §284) guarantees you the recovery of at least a reasonable royalty. Additionally, if the infringement of your patent was found to be willful, you can be awarded up to triple these damages.
3. The prospect of economic return from license fees.
Sometimes just the mere possibility of you filing a patent infringement suit will induce parties that are potentially infringing your patent to accept a written demand that they pay you a license fee. In some cases, unknown parties may approach to offer you a license payment in exchange for a promise that you will not sue them for practicing your invention.
We specialize in preparing, drafting, and filing both U.S. and international patent applications for technologies involving electronics, software, telecommunications, medical, and mechanical devices. We are offering competitive rates, a free initial consultation, and a free initial inventor disclosure meeting. Additionally, if you are local to San Diego County, we can schedule meetings with you at your own home or office at no extra charge.
We pride ourselves in drafting high-quality patents in order to maximize both the value and strategic advantage of our client's intellectual property portfolios.
What advantages are there in obtaining a patent for my invention?
A patent grants the patent owner the right to exclude others from making or having made, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the invention as defined in the patent's claims. Nine key advantages associated with patents are listed here:
1. Filing for/obtaining a patent may make it substantially easier for you to raise capital for your business.
The fact that you are currently seeking (or have already obtained) a patent for one or more of your inventions is a strong signal to investors and venture capitalists that your proposal is more than just a bunch of fluffy imaginative talk. Since a patent application requires a detailed written description of how to make and how to use your invention, the fact that you have fleshed out your invention to a Patent Examiner in sufficient written detail indicates to the investment world that you are serious about your invention.
2. The prospect of economic return for infringing activities.
If you successfully obtain an issued patent, you have a right to sue any infringing parties for monetary damages. You do not necessarily have to prove that you lost profits as a result of the infringing activity, since the patent damages statute (35 U.S.C. §284) guarantees you the recovery of at least a reasonable royalty. Additionally, if the infringement of your patent was found to be willful, you can be awarded up to triple these damages.
3. The prospect of economic return from license fees.
Sometimes just the mere possibility of you filing a patent infringement suit will induce parties that are potentially infringing your patent to accept a written demand that they pay you a license fee. In some cases, unknown parties may approach to offer you a license payment in exchange for a promise that you will not sue them for practicing your invention.
4. Increasing the value of your business.
A company's patent portfolio is often a key component in how that company is valued. A strong patent portfolio can increase your company's publicly traded stock price. It can also increase the price that prospective purchasers would be willing to pay in the event that you ever decided to sell your company as a going concern.
5. Selling/Assigning your patent to an interested purchaser.
You do not necessarily need to own a business to realize commercial value from an issued patent. In fact, in the U.S. as well as in many other foreign jurisdictions, you do not even need to practice your invention at all. Since patents are freely alienable (transferable), you are perfectly free to sell/assign your patent to any interested buyer for value. Moreover, since patents are essentially monopoly rights, in many cases interested buyers may not have the option of striking a deal with anyone else.
6. The prospect of completely halting your business competitor's activities.
In certain situations, you can seek an injunction (a court order) barring one or more parties from practicing your invention. If the court grants you this injunction, your competitors may be legally compelled to shut down manufacturing operations at their factories, recall products that are sitting on various store shelves, delist all infringing products from their product catalogs, remove infringing software from their web servers, and redesign their current product line just to avoid your patent. An injunction can therefore be used to majorly disrupt the operations of your business competitors, or otherwise induce them into paying you heftily for a license to practice your invention.
A company's patent portfolio is often a key component in how that company is valued. A strong patent portfolio can increase your company's publicly traded stock price. It can also increase the price that prospective purchasers would be willing to pay in the event that you ever decided to sell your company as a going concern.
5. Selling/Assigning your patent to an interested purchaser.
You do not necessarily need to own a business to realize commercial value from an issued patent. In fact, in the U.S. as well as in many other foreign jurisdictions, you do not even need to practice your invention at all. Since patents are freely alienable (transferable), you are perfectly free to sell/assign your patent to any interested buyer for value. Moreover, since patents are essentially monopoly rights, in many cases interested buyers may not have the option of striking a deal with anyone else.
6. The prospect of completely halting your business competitor's activities.
In certain situations, you can seek an injunction (a court order) barring one or more parties from practicing your invention. If the court grants you this injunction, your competitors may be legally compelled to shut down manufacturing operations at their factories, recall products that are sitting on various store shelves, delist all infringing products from their product catalogs, remove infringing software from their web servers, and redesign their current product line just to avoid your patent. An injunction can therefore be used to majorly disrupt the operations of your business competitors, or otherwise induce them into paying you heftily for a license to practice your invention.
7. The deterrent effect of patent marking.
Filing a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office will accord you the right to mark products covered by your patent with a "patent pending" notice. This notice can potentially deter would-be competitors from entering into the protected space to compete against you. In the case of an issued patent, a patent marking may enable you to recover damages for infringing activity dating all the way back to the date that the marked products were first made accessible to the public.
8. Improving your position in court in the event that you are sued by your competitors.
In the event that you or your business is sued, depending on the specific facts and circumstances of your case, you may have the option of asserting a patent infringement counterclaim against the original claimant. In some cases, the potential damages for your counterclaim may match or even exceed the potential damages of the original claim.
9. Improving your position at the negotiating table in the event that someone threatens to sue you.
Depending on your specific facts and circumstances, if you own a patent, and some individual or legal entity threatens to take some type of legal action against you, you can respond with a threat of your own -- a patent infringement suit. The party that threatened you with legal action must now assess the risk of having to defend against an expensive lawsuit where there are unpredictable and largely variable jury awards, as well as the possibility of having to pay treble (triple) damages in the event infringement is found to be willful. After assessing this risk, this party may ultimately decide that it would be safer not to tangle with you at all. This may be true even in cases where your patent infringement position is not particularly strong, because patent infringement cases are typically complex, time consuming, and involve a fair amount of expert testimony. Therefore, the extra associated costs of litigating your patent case may alter this party's cost-calculus just enough to save you from having to face an expensive lawsuit.
Filing a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office will accord you the right to mark products covered by your patent with a "patent pending" notice. This notice can potentially deter would-be competitors from entering into the protected space to compete against you. In the case of an issued patent, a patent marking may enable you to recover damages for infringing activity dating all the way back to the date that the marked products were first made accessible to the public.
8. Improving your position in court in the event that you are sued by your competitors.
In the event that you or your business is sued, depending on the specific facts and circumstances of your case, you may have the option of asserting a patent infringement counterclaim against the original claimant. In some cases, the potential damages for your counterclaim may match or even exceed the potential damages of the original claim.
9. Improving your position at the negotiating table in the event that someone threatens to sue you.
Depending on your specific facts and circumstances, if you own a patent, and some individual or legal entity threatens to take some type of legal action against you, you can respond with a threat of your own -- a patent infringement suit. The party that threatened you with legal action must now assess the risk of having to defend against an expensive lawsuit where there are unpredictable and largely variable jury awards, as well as the possibility of having to pay treble (triple) damages in the event infringement is found to be willful. After assessing this risk, this party may ultimately decide that it would be safer not to tangle with you at all. This may be true even in cases where your patent infringement position is not particularly strong, because patent infringement cases are typically complex, time consuming, and involve a fair amount of expert testimony. Therefore, the extra associated costs of litigating your patent case may alter this party's cost-calculus just enough to save you from having to face an expensive lawsuit.
How long do I have to decide whether I should file a patent application?
With the passage of the America Invents Act, there is a great deal more urgency in getting your applications on file with the United States Patent and Trademark Office as early as practicably possible. With every day that passes, millions of new documents become available worldwide, and any one of these documents can potentially be used as invalidating prior art against your later filed patent application. Additionally, with every day that passes, there is also a substantial risk that your own activities (and in some cases, the activities of your agents and/or employees) can be used by the United States Patent and Trademark Office as grounds for denying you a patent.
Don't sleep on your rights. Please contact us to set up your free initial consultation.
How difficult would it be to apply for a patent on my own?
In earlier times, the patent system was geared primarily toward the individual inventor. This was usually an artisan or a tinkerer working inside a small shop, an office, or within his own garage. Patent applications were typically one page documents that were drafted, filed, and prosecuted by the very same person who invented the process or device.
Over the years, however, both the technical and legal complexity of patent applications has exploded. The United States Patent and Trademark Office currently has a Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) that is significantly more than 1000 pages of substantive and procedural requirements. In fact, the requirements for practicing patent law today are so complex that the United States Patent and Trademark Office will only grant this right to people who have passed a six hour specialty registration examination known colloquially as "The Patent Bar."
So while it is still technically and legally possible for individual inventors to apply for, file, and prosecute their own patent applications (this is commonly called "pro se" or "pro per" representation), employing this course of action in most situations is highly inadvisable. Mastering the MPEP can be an extraordinary challenge in its own right, and yet even if one could attain a complete mastery of the MPEP, there would still be the additional challenge of making sense of Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that are in direct conflict with the rules stated in the MPEP.
Moreover, many pro se patent applicants frequently fail to appreciate that their objective (in the overwhelming majority of cases) should not be to simply get a patent issued, but to get a patent issued having patent claims that are narrow enough to withstand invalidity challenges, and yet broad enough to read on infringing activity. After all, what would be the point of spending time, energy, and effort, in addition to paying a significant number of non-refundable government fees, only to obtain a patent with claims that are so narrow that they cannot possibly be infringed by anyone, or for a patent with claims so broad that they will only later be invalidated by the courts?
So while it is still technically and legally possible for an inventor to apply for and prosecute their own patent applications, due to the sheer complexity involved and the substantial number of non-refundable fees that the inventor is required pay, in most cases, these tasks better left to seasoned patent professionals.
In closing--
In today's world, trillions of dollars are changing hands every year as a result of patent sales, patent licensing fees, and patent infringement lawsuits. Meanwhile, the number of patent applications filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office has at least quadrupled since 1963, and similar trends are also present worldwide.
There is a certain sense that patents have eclipsed the business world. It seems that everywhere you turn these days, companies are either trying to purchase or license large volumes of patents in certain technological areas, or at least the key patents within those areas. And in the global picture, patents have become a progressively larger source of income for a significant number of local, foreign, and international business entities.
Let us help guide you to success. Contact us at The Patent Shoppe today to set up your free initial consultation.
With the passage of the America Invents Act, there is a great deal more urgency in getting your applications on file with the United States Patent and Trademark Office as early as practicably possible. With every day that passes, millions of new documents become available worldwide, and any one of these documents can potentially be used as invalidating prior art against your later filed patent application. Additionally, with every day that passes, there is also a substantial risk that your own activities (and in some cases, the activities of your agents and/or employees) can be used by the United States Patent and Trademark Office as grounds for denying you a patent.
Don't sleep on your rights. Please contact us to set up your free initial consultation.
How difficult would it be to apply for a patent on my own?
In earlier times, the patent system was geared primarily toward the individual inventor. This was usually an artisan or a tinkerer working inside a small shop, an office, or within his own garage. Patent applications were typically one page documents that were drafted, filed, and prosecuted by the very same person who invented the process or device.
Over the years, however, both the technical and legal complexity of patent applications has exploded. The United States Patent and Trademark Office currently has a Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) that is significantly more than 1000 pages of substantive and procedural requirements. In fact, the requirements for practicing patent law today are so complex that the United States Patent and Trademark Office will only grant this right to people who have passed a six hour specialty registration examination known colloquially as "The Patent Bar."
So while it is still technically and legally possible for individual inventors to apply for, file, and prosecute their own patent applications (this is commonly called "pro se" or "pro per" representation), employing this course of action in most situations is highly inadvisable. Mastering the MPEP can be an extraordinary challenge in its own right, and yet even if one could attain a complete mastery of the MPEP, there would still be the additional challenge of making sense of Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that are in direct conflict with the rules stated in the MPEP.
Moreover, many pro se patent applicants frequently fail to appreciate that their objective (in the overwhelming majority of cases) should not be to simply get a patent issued, but to get a patent issued having patent claims that are narrow enough to withstand invalidity challenges, and yet broad enough to read on infringing activity. After all, what would be the point of spending time, energy, and effort, in addition to paying a significant number of non-refundable government fees, only to obtain a patent with claims that are so narrow that they cannot possibly be infringed by anyone, or for a patent with claims so broad that they will only later be invalidated by the courts?
So while it is still technically and legally possible for an inventor to apply for and prosecute their own patent applications, due to the sheer complexity involved and the substantial number of non-refundable fees that the inventor is required pay, in most cases, these tasks better left to seasoned patent professionals.
In closing--
In today's world, trillions of dollars are changing hands every year as a result of patent sales, patent licensing fees, and patent infringement lawsuits. Meanwhile, the number of patent applications filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office has at least quadrupled since 1963, and similar trends are also present worldwide.
There is a certain sense that patents have eclipsed the business world. It seems that everywhere you turn these days, companies are either trying to purchase or license large volumes of patents in certain technological areas, or at least the key patents within those areas. And in the global picture, patents have become a progressively larger source of income for a significant number of local, foreign, and international business entities.
Let us help guide you to success. Contact us at The Patent Shoppe today to set up your free initial consultation.
