by Kathy Belcher
Cluster Specialist
STEM and Manufacturing
Recently a STEM teacher was bragging enthusiastically about his CTE students and the patents they have been granted for inventions while attending high school and after graduation. One student was granted a patent (with five other inventors) for a water meter that is now being sold. Another student received a patent (with a computer design software company) for a method of saving, filing, and rewriting materials. Another student in his robotics program went to work at NASA and worked on patents for parts and programming for a satellite that is in space. This conversation stimulated my interest to learn more about the patent application process. Please read on to learn about the process so you can encourage your CTE students to submit an application for one of their inventions or designs.
A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The right is to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling the invention in the United States, or importing the invention into the United States.” The term of a new patent is normally for 20 years from the date the application has been filed.
To obtain a patent, the subject must have a useful purpose, be operative, and not be merely an idea. A complete description of the subject is required in the application. There are three types of patents—utility, design, and plant. Two of the three types (utility and design) are highly relevant to CTE students in STEM and Manufacturing.
- A utility patent may be granted to a student who invents or discovers a new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, composition of matter, or a new or useful improvement of one of these.
- A design patent may be granted to a student who invents a new, original, and design for an article of manufacture.
- A plant patent may be granted to a student who invents or discovers a new variety of plant.
The utility patent protects the way the invention is used or works, while the design patent protects the way the invention looks. Both patents may be obtained on an invention.
Non-provisional and provisional applications for a patent are made to the Director of the USPTO. This office receives a reported 500,000 applications per year. A provisional application provides for lower-cost filing, establishes an early effective filing date for a later non-provisional application filed, and permits the terms “Patent-Pending” applied to the invention. The student has up to 12 months to file a non-provisional application, or lose all rights to the provisional application. During this patent-pending phase of the application, a student may sell their invention without fear of losing any rights to the invention, but there is no guarantee that any application will eventually receive a patent. A provisional application may be made for a utility patent and a plant patent, but not for a design patent.
Provisional Application for a Patent must include:
- A written description of the invention to secure a filing date
- Drawings, if necessary to understand the invention
- Filing fees
- Cover sheet identifying
- a. It is a provisional application
- b. Name and residence of inventor(s)
- c. Title of invention
- d. Name of agent or attorney (if applicable)
- e. U.S. Government agency (if there is a property interest in application)
Provisional applications should not include oath or declaration since provisional applications are not to be examined.
Non-provisional Application must include:
- Transmittal form or letter
- Application data sheet
- Drawings (if necessary for a utility patent, primary importance for a design patent)
- Oath or declaration (executed) as the original inventor or original joint inventor
- Filing, search, and examination fees (file electronically to avoid additional $400 fee)
- Written documentation specification (description and claims) including
- a. Title of Invention
- b. Cross Reference to related applications (if any)
- c. Statement of federally sponsored research or development (if any)
- d. Names of the parties to a joint research agreement
- e. Background of the invention
- f. Brief summary of the invention
- g. Brief description of the several views of the drawing (if any)
- h. Detailed description of the invention
- i. Claim(s) of subject matter
- j. Abstract
- k. Sequence listing (if any)
- l. Reference to a sequence listing
Non-provisional utility applications must be filed via the Internet to avoid a substantial non-electronic filing fee. Design, plant, and provisional applications, can be filed by mail or hand-delivered to the Commissioner for Patents in Alexandria, Virginia, without incurring the non-electronic filing fee. A student may prepare an application, but most inventors work with a registered patent attorney or agent to secure the greatest protection.
Before your student submits an application for a patent, he/she should conduct a search of the published patents. An online patent search may be conducted at
www.uspto.gov, or a public patent search may be conducted at the Scientific and Technical Information Center of the USPTO and the Public Search Facility in Alexandria Virginia. For example, to locate the student applicant of the water meter, you may do a “quick” search for the title Water Meter, an “advanced” search of the applicant’s name in this format Doe-John-R, or a “patent number” search of 8,690,117. The application was filed on January 27, 2012 by six applicants (US and Canada) and the publication date was April 8, 2014. The application is a continuation-in-part of a U.S. patent filed in 2007 and 2009, claiming priority to a Provisional Patent Application filed in 2006.
For a CTE lesson outlining a four-step process for a robot design patent, see Robotics and Patents at
www.cte.unt.edu (click on STEM). The Robotics and Automation TEKS in this lesson state:
- (10) The student designs products using appropriate design processes and techniques. The student is expected to:
- o (H) describe potential patents and the patenting process.
To learn more about patents and how to submit non-provisional and provisional patent applications, refer to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce website (www.uspto.gov). Encourage your CTE students to apply for a utility patent or a design patent to take their high school inventions and designs to the next level.
For extended learning, there is an interesting patent article in the October 2014 edition of TexasMonthly magazine titled Patently Unfair by Loren Steffy. The article highlights Marshall, Texas (small town of 24,000 people), which has become the patent litigation capital of America for some of the largest high-tech companies. Marshall is known for speedy patent trials and has gained a reputation as “the intellectual property equivalent to a speed trap” (2014).
http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/patent-law-in-marshall-texas
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