Inventions and Patents

GATT does provide some patent rules of potential advantage to small inventors. For example, it provides for the issuance of "provisional patent applications," which in effect allows inventors to file a preliminary application that establishes the date of invention. The provisional application does not replace the regular PTO application, but it gives inventors additional time to prepare for that step. Other GATT rules changed import/export rules regarding intellectual property and expanded the number of scenarios under which interference proceedings could be launched.

American Inventors Protection Act

The most recent domestic legislation that has impacted the patent and invention process is the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999. This law contained many provisions of interest to inventors, including the following:

• Establishes the Patent and Trademark Office as an agency within the Department of Commerce.
• Reduced the risk of patent infringement lawsuits against various industries, most notably financial services companies, whose "methods of doing business" had been claimed as proprietary by patent holders.
• Requires invention promotion companies to provide complete disclosure of various aspects of their operational history, including their customers success in receiving net financial profit and license agreements as a direct result of the invention promotion services.
• Reduces fees for international patent applications and initial maintenance fees, and authorizes the PTO director to adjust trademark fees without regard to fluctuations in the Consumer Price Index.
• Extends the terms of patents to compensate for processing delays and delays in the prosecution of applications pending for more than three years. Provides a minimum of 17-year patent term for diligent applicants.
• Provides for publication of patent applications 18 months after filing unless the applicant requests otherwise and certifies that the invention has not and will not be patented in another country.

FILING PATENTS IN THE U.S. AND ABROAD

Most experienced inventors and patent experts counsel inventors to file for a patent as soon as possible. In the United States you have to apply for a patent within one year of the time you first disclose the device or start selling it. At the conclusion of that year, a valid patent may not be obtained. Inventors should also note that a U.S. patent will not provide him or her with protection in other countries; patent applications need to be made in every country in which protection is desired. Moreover, in other countries, inventors have to apply for the patent before it is publicly disclosed.

Finally, the PTO notes that in most instances, American inventors seeking to secure a patent in another country must first get a license from the Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks. This requirement is waived, however, if the filing in the foreign country takes place more than six months after the U.S. filing took place.

There are two major international patent treaties that should be studied by inventors hoping to market their products abroad. The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, which was signed by the United States and nearly 100 other nations, stipulates that each signing nation provide the same rights in patents and trademarks to citizens of other participating nations that it does to its own. The Patent Cooperation Treaty, meanwhile, is a patent agreement that includes more than 50 nations.

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