Patent

I

Introduction

Patent, a legal document granted by the government giving an inventor the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing an invention for a specified number of years. In the United States, patents last for 20 years, starting from the date the application for the patent is first filed. The goal of the patent system is to encourage inventors to advance the state of technology by awarding them special rights to benefit from their inventions.

Patent law is one branch of the larger legal field known as intellectual property, which also includes trademark and copyright law. Patent protection has great economic importance to a number of industries that rely on technological innovation to remain competitive, such as the chemical, pharmaceutical, and computer industries.

The U.S. government grants patents for machines; compositions of matter, such as new chemical compounds to be used in industry; manufactured items; and industrial processes, provided they meet a number of strict legal tests. Patents are also available for significant improvements on previously invented items. Special patents can be obtained for the invention or discovery and asexual reproduction of certain distinct and new types of vegetation. Patents may also be granted for certain types of industrial designs, such as a distinct tread pattern on the soles of hiking boots or tennis shoes. Computer programs have been granted patent protection, as have various living organisms, such as specialized mice that were bred to help in cancer research. In recent years the government has also allowed inventors to obtain patents on new ways of doing business, such as the method for conducting an auction on the Internet. Books, movies, and works of art cannot be patented, but protection is available for such items under the law of copyright.

II

History

In the United States, patent law dates to 1641, when the first patents for inventions were issued by the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the manufacture of salt. The Constitution of the United States, which became effective in 1789, gave the U.S. Congress the power to enact federal patent laws. Congress adopted the first patent law in 1790 as one of its first actions.

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In 1790 the first U.S. patent was granted to Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia for a new method of processing potassium carbonate, also called potash or pearl ash, for use in making soap. A fire in December 1836 destroyed the approximately 10,000 patents that had been issued until then, and only 2,845 were eventually restored or reconstructed. Meanwhile, in July 1836 Congress passed the Patent Act, which created the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) as an agency within the Department of State. The PTO immediately began issuing patents as a new numbered series. (Patents issued previously had not been numbered, but those recovered from the fire were later given numbers preceded by the letter x.) U.S. patent number 1 was issued in July 1836 to John Ruggles, a U.S. senator from Maine who had authored the Patent Act, for his invention of traction wheels for the locomotive steam engine.

By 1935 the PTO had issued its first 2 million patents. By the end of 1999 the PTO had awarded a total of 6 million patents. In recent years, the volume of patent applications has increased dramatically. Many parties interested in the patent system have expressed concerns that the quality of the PTO’s work has suffered because of the increased application volume. They also worry that it will soon take the office many years to process patent applications. In 2003 the director of the PTO told Congress that the PTO was facing an impending crisis because of its increasingly large and complex workload.

In 2007 a lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation resulted in what was believed to be the largest damages ever awarded for patent infringement. A United States jury found that Microsoft had violated patents held by Alcatel-Lucent for technology relating to the MP3 music format and awarded the latter company $1.52 billion in damages.

III

U.S. Patent Law

Since 1790 Congress has frequently amended U.S. patent law. Despite the early development of patent law in the United States, there was no central administrative office to determine the validity of U.S. patents until the PTO was established in 1836. Since then, the PTO has examined all applications for patents to decide whether they meet the requirements of the patent laws. The current patent law was adopted in 1952 and is administered by the PTO, which is now an agency within the Department of Commerce.

A

Applications

To obtain patent protection in the United States, an inventor must file a patent application with the PTO. This application has three parts: (1) the specification, which gives a general description of the invention; (2) the claims, which provide more detailed statements explaining exactly how the invention works or is assembled; and (3) drawings that illustrate the invention. Most inventors need to hire a patent lawyer or a specially qualified professional called a patent agent to help them prepare the application.

An official at the PTO, called a patent examiner, reviews the application to determine if it qualifies for a patent. The applicant receives no patent rights until the PTO approves and issues the patent. During the patent examination process, the patent examiner may ask the applicant to answer various questions about the invention. The law requires the patent applicant to disclose all information in his or her possession that is relevant to whether the patent should be issued. Because this process often goes back and forth several times between the applicant and the examiner, obtaining a patent can be time-consuming and expensive.

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