Table of Contents
Your Legal Companion 1
1 Patents and Intellectual Property Law 3
What Is a Patent? 4
The Three Types of Patents 5
Patent Rights 6
The Requirements for Obtaining a Patent 7
How Long Do Patent Rights Last? 8
How Patent Rights Can Be Lost 9
Intellectual Property-The Big Picture 10
Trademarks 11
Copyright 13
Trade Secrets 17
Unfair Competition 22
2 Qualifying for a Patent 23
Requirements for a Utility Patent 24
Statutory Classes 26
Utility 31
Novelty and Prior Art 33
Nonobviousness 43
Design Patent Requirements 55
Plant Patents 59
3 Invention Documentation 61
The Value of Documentation 62
Lab Notebook 64
Invention Disclosure 67
Trade Secret Considerations 69
4 Patent Searching 71
Principles of Patent Searching 72
Hiring a Patent Searcher 73
Do-lt-Yourself Searching 76
5 Reading and Writing Patents 91
Elements of an Issued Patent 93
Invention and Inventor Data 93
Specification 94
Claims 108
Abstract 115
Drawings 118
Preparation of a Patent Application 119
Specification (including Description, Claims, and Abstract) and Drawings 120
Electronic Filing (The EFS System) 131
6 Patent Prosecution and the PTO 137
Patent Prosecution: The Road to Allowance 139
Responding to a Final Office Action 152
Additional Application Issues 157
Design Patent Prosecution 161
7 Patent Ownership 163
The Inventor Is Initial Owner of Patent Rights 164
Employee Inventions 165
Joint Owners 172
8 Patent Infringement 177
What Is Patent Infringement? 179
Who Can Sue, Who Can Be Sued? 188
Stopping Patent infringement 189
Defenses to Patent Infringement 198
Ending Disputes Without a Lawsuit 206
9 International Patent Law 211
Introduction to Foreign Patent Treaties and Laws 212
Putting It Together. The Most Common Route for U.S. Inventors Seeking Foreign Patent Coverage 218
The Paris Convention and the One-Year Foreign Filing Rule 218
The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) 221
European Patent Office (EPO) 225
Locating Foreign Patent Agents 226
10 Help Beyond This Book 233
Inventor Resources 234
Patents and Intellectual Property Resources 235
Working With an Attorney 237
Glossary 241
Index 255
