What is a Patent?
A patent is a legal document that grants the owner the “exclusive right to prevent others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the patented invention” for a limited period of time (Cornell Legal Information). All patents are filed federally, regardless of locality, governed under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution of the United States which reads: "Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (USPTO).
What does a patent do?
A patent protects your work from being used, manufactured, or sold by anyone other than yourself. When you know that you want to protect your investment of time, mental exertion and skills. This is your hard earned intellectual property. Anyone can have property, you’ve been given intellectual property.
Efficiency
When filing patents, time is of the essence. With the “first to file” system for patent applications, you want to make sure that your patent attorney is on the ball ready to help when you need it, rather than wait in line through an endless queue of clients. That’s why you want to work with a small business patent attorney to make sure that everything is up to snuff and ready for your application to file: to protect your hard-earned intellectual property.
