Patent Applications

What are your options for responding to a Final Office Action? When faced with a final rejection, a patent applicant has a couple of options in…

What Inventors Really Need to Know Before Filing If you’re considering a utility patent, the biggest mistake is not spending too much. It is filing…

Must inventions made in the USA be filed first with the USPTO? Except when permission is granted, a patent application for an invention made in the…

Does a continuing application require an IDS disclosing prior art references already considered in the parent application? No.  According to MPEP Section 609.02, it is…

When is the nonprovisional deadline? The 1-year anniversary of a US provisional patent application or a foreign priority application may occasionally fall on a non-business…

What is a patent Office Action? After waiting one to two years (or longer) from the filing date of your utility nonprovisional patent application, you…

Is a Power of Attorney required to file a patent Office Action response? No, a power of attorney need not be filed in order to…

What is an Information Disclosure Statement (IDS)? Every patent applicant has a duty to disclose to the USPTO all known prior art or other information…

How do you mark products with patent numbers? The question is not if you should mark your patented products (of course you should!), but how.…

Is my patent application being rejected? If a patent examiner thinks that the pending claims in a patent application are directed to more than one invention,…

Reasons for Filing a Continuing Application A continuing application is basically a child patent application that must be filed while the parent patent application is…

How long does a utility patent last? Generally, a utility patent expires 20 years from the filing date [35 USC 154(a)]. This 20-year patent term…