Skip to Main Content

Patent & Trademark Resource Center: Patents

This guide provides a starting point for resources on patents and trademarks

United States Patent and Trademark Office

What is a patent?

  • A U.S. patent gives you, the inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. 
  • What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on your patent, you may initiate legal action. U.S. patents are effective only within the U.S. and its territories and possessions.

How long is a patent valid?

  • Utility and plant patents have a term for up to 20 years from the date the first non-provisional application for patent was filed. A design patent is granted for a term of 15 years from the date of grant. You will need to pay maintenance fees on a certain schedule after the utility patent is issued in order to keep it in force. Under certain unusual conditions, patent terms may be extended or adjusted.

What can be patented?

  • For a patent to be issued, your invention must meet four conditions:
    1. Able to be used (the invention must work and cannot just be a theory)
    2. A clear description of how to make and use the invention
    3. New, or “novel” (something not done before)
    4. “Not obvious,” as related to a change to something already invented
  1. Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.
  2. Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture; and
  3. Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant.

Google Patent Search

Official Gazette for Patents

Types of Patent Applications

Roadmap to Filing a Patent Application Video

There are three types of patents: utility, design, and plant. There are two types of utility and plant patent applications: provisional and nonprovisional. A provisional application is a quick and inexpensive way for inventors to establish a U.S. filing date for their invention, which can be claimed in a later-filed nonprovisional application. A provisional application is automatically abandoned 12 months after its filing date and is not examined. An applicant who decides to initially file a provisional application must file a corresponding nonprovisional application during the 12-month pendency period of the provisional application in order to benefit from the earlier provisional application filing. A nonprovisional application is examined by a patent examiner and may be issued as a patent if all the requirements for patentability are met. Each year the USPTO receives more than 500,000 patent applications. Most of the applications filed with the USPTO are nonprovisional applications for utility patents.

Provisional Application for Patent

Nonprovisional (Utility) Patent Application

Design Patent Application

Plant Patent Application