US Patent Basics

U.S. Patent Basics of U.S. Patents

US Patent Basics

The last thing an inventor wants to do is to spend a lot of time and energy putting his new idea into practice only to find out that the same invention has already been made. The best way to avoid this situation is to do a good job of collecting information in the early stage of research and development. According to the statistical results of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), more than 80 percent of scientific and technological knowledge is described in patent documents, and most of the technologies described in patents are not described in other publications. Therefore, inventors must never ignore the importance of patent information.

The so-called patent (Patent) is the abbreviation of patent right, which is the exclusive right granted to the applicant in legal form by the State Patent Office in accordance with the provisions of the Patent Law to enjoy its inventions and creations within the statutory period. In addition to protecting products, patents are also like product manuals, with text and icons describing the components, features, uses, and methods of use of the product. In addition, patent information also includes any information that can be obtained from documents issued by the patent office, including technical data, market information, legal information, and any information about the company.

If you want to quickly search and read patents, you must first have a general understanding of each part of the patent. The following mainly introduces the basic knowledge of US patents.

1 Types and codes of US patent documents

Patent document is a general term for all patent documents related to the patent system. Patent documents mainly include patent applications and patent specifications. The following introduces the types of US patent documents and the codes of the documents.

1.1 Types of US patent documents

1.1.1 According to the chronological order of patent documents, patent documents mainly include:

Patent Application Publication

Patent specification (Utility Patent)

1.1.2 According to the type of patent, it can be divided into:

◆ Utility Patent

◆ Plant Patent

◆ Design Patent

1.2 US Patent Number

1.2.1 The numbering system of the patent application number (Application Number)

The US patent application number is mainly composed of two-digit application number series code (Application Number Series Code) and six-digit application sequence number. If the number of digits is insufficient, the number is filled with zero. Such as Appl. No.: 09/000001.

Generally speaking, each cycle of various patent application numbers is continuously arranged from 1 to 999999, and it goes round and round. In order to distinguish the application numbers of different cycle periods, the serial codes of the application numbers are used. The application number series code is also used to indicate the type of application: 01-28 is used for invention and plant patent applications, and the two are mixed and arranged

29 for design applications

60 for provisional patent applications

90 for ex parte reexamination requests

95 for interpartes reexamination requests

1.2.2 The document numbering system of the patent application publication specification

Since 2001, the US Patent and Trademark Office has published two types of publications: invention patent applications and plant patent applications. The Publication Number is composed of two parts: the four-digit document publication year number and the seven-digit document publication sequence number. If there are insufficient digits, zeros shall be used to fill the place. There is a document type identification code behind the publication number, among which:

A1 means the first-level publication of the invention patent application

A2 Indicates that the invention patent application is republished

A9 means the publication of amendments to the first-level publication of the invention patent application

P1 indicates the first level of publication of plant patent applications

P4 means plant patent application republished

P9 indicates the publication of amendments to the first-level publication of plant patent applications

1.2.3 Numbering system of patent specifications

In the US patents published before January 2, 2001, different patent categories have patent numbers in different formats. The patent number of a general invention patent is a seven-digit number, such as 6,666,666; the patent number of a new style patent starts with the letter D followed by a numerical serial number, such as D333,333; the patent number of a plant patent starts with PP followed by a numerical serial number, Such as PP8,112.

Since 2001, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has fully adopted the WIPO standard in its published patent documents, that is, the patent document type identification code stipulated in the "Recommended Standard Codes for Identifying Different Types of Patent Documents", so there is a patent after the patent number. The document type indicates the code, among which:

A indicates the first-level publication of invention patents (published before 2000/12, replaced by B1 and B2 patents after 2001) B1 indicates the first-level publication of invention patents (no prior application publication, that is, the first publication)

B2 means the second-level publication of invention patents (previous publication before authorized publication)

P2 indicates the second level of publication of plant patents

S stands for design patent

But for design patents and plant patents, the patent number still has the previous code in front of it.

2 Patent specification

Taking the invention patent in the United States as an example, the main content of the US patent specification is introduced. The US patent specification is generally divided into four parts:

Cover: including the basic information of the patent (such as patent number, patent application date, inventor's name, etc.), invention summary, icon and number of claims, etc.

Icons: including icons depicting inventions

The content part of the instruction manual: including the text description

Scope of patent application: including the request item (or claim item) to define the protection scope of the patent.

2.1 Cover

The cover provides the basic information of the patent, which mainly includes three aspects, namely: bibliographic items, the number of claim items, representative main drawings and so on.

On the cover, next to each item of basic information is printed a number framed in [ ] (use () after 2001), this

That is, the INID code (Internationally agreed Numbers for the Identification of Bibliographic Data code; INID code, bibliographic data identification code). INID code is an internationally unified number, and each INID code represents a different patent data. The general meaning of the INID code is as follows

Literature mark: (11) Literature number, (19) Country or organization code;

Patent application data: (21)~(26) application number, application date, etc.;

Priority data: (31)~(33) the country, date and application number of the priority application (priority data will be explained later) Document publication date: (43)~(45) publication date of various descriptions

Technical information: (51)~(58) patent classification, invention title, invention abstract, claims, search fields, etc.

Personnel citations related to documents: (71)~(74) patent applicant, inventor name, agency

The following is a brief introduction to the common INID codes in the order of appearance in the US patent:

[19] Announced country or organization: Appears in US patents announced before January 2, 2001, displayed on the right side of United States Patent in the upper left corner of the patent cover, and the English below is the first inventor's surname.

[12] Announcement type: Appears in US patents announced after January 2, 2001, displayed on the left side of United States Patent in the upper left corner of the patent cover, and the English below is the first inventor's surname.

[11] Patent Number: Appears in US patents published before January 2, 2001

[10] Patent number and patent identification code (Patent No.): appear in US patents published after January 2, 2001, such as US7456345 B2.

[45] Date of Patent: the date of patent announcement.

[54] Invention title: the patent applicant's name for the invention.

[75] Inventor (Inventor): Include the name of the inventor and the place of residence of the inventor, etc.

[73] Patent assignee (Assignee): The owner of the patent, usually the company where the inventor works, the assignee of the patent right can decide whether to assign or resell the patent.

[21] Patent application number (Appl. No.): The application number given by the US Patent Office when the patent is filed

[22] Patent application date (Filed): the date of patent application

[51] International Patent Classification Number (Int. Cl.): Represents the category of invention to which the invention belongs.

[52] United States Patent Classification Number (US Cl.): Represents the category of invention to which the invention belongs.

[58] Field of Search: It is the US patent classification number of the patents searched by the examiner during the examination.

[56] Reference Cited: It refers to relevant materials referred to by the review committee during patent examination, which is divided into US Patent Documents, Foreign Patent Documents and Other Publications ).

[74] Agent information: Provide the name of the agent or the name of the representing law firm.

[57] Abstract of the invention (ABSTRACT): A brief description of the invention.

Related U.S. Application Data

[63] The parent case of the patent and its related information: when the patent is a continuation case, the parent case information on which it is based.

Continuation-in-part Application (CIP): A continuation-in-part application is an application filed while an earlier application (called the parent application) is still under examination. Usually, the purpose of filing a partial continuation case is to add features not disclosed in the parent case and to apply for a range of claims different from the parent case. Among them, the priority date of the parent case can be claimed by following the characteristic part of the parent case. Continued Prosecution Application (CPA): The continuation of the Prosecution Application (CPA) is usually filed within six months of the applicant receiving the final rejection. Usually the purpose of filing a case for continuation of examination is to continue the examination. In addition, the continuation of examination cannot be applied to the "invention patent application" or "plant patent application" filed on May 29, 2000, and the new style patent is not limited to this.

Continuation Application: A continuation application is an application filed during the review period of an earlier application (called the parent application), and uses the application date of the parent application as the priority date. It can be said to be a continuation of the parent application. Usually the purpose of filing a continuation case is to apply for a scope of claims different from that of the parent case.

2.2 Icons:

Diagrams are often used in patents to help readers understand the invention. Different components will be marked with numbers in the drawings to facilitate explanations in the text. In addition, icons are also of great help to non-English-speaking readers. For simple inventions, you can often understand the content of the invention by looking at pictures and telling stories. In the U.S. patent, the icon of the prior art is marked with Prior Art, and the icon without Prior Art is the icon of the invention. Readers can often understand the characteristics of the invention by comparing the icons of the prior art and the new invention.

2.3 Contents of the manual

2.3.1Title (invention name):

The name of the invention by the patent applicant is the same as the title of the invention printed on the cover of the patent.

2.3.2 Background of the Invention (invention background):

The background of the invention is divided into two parts: field of the invention (Field of the Invention or Technical Field) and known technology (Description of the Related Art or Description of Prior Art).

The field of invention is used to briefly describe the related technical field of the invention. Through the field of invention, you can understand the larger technical field and the smaller technical field to which the invention belongs. Such as: The invention relates to a container (larger technical field). More

In particular, the invention relates to an airtight container (smaller technology areas). The details of the invention are generally not described within the field of the invention.

Known technologies are used to discuss the shortcomings of existing technologies and problems to be solved.

2.3.3 Summary of the Invention

This section generally describes the patented invention and its advantages. A common way of writing is to describe the content of the independent item. Since it is an overview of patented inventions, it is generally avoided to include some non-essential constituent elements in the overview of inventions. The following is a general understanding of the characteristics of this part through the matters that need to be paid attention to when writing this part:

● Do not use "the present invention includes..." and similar sentences to describe unnecessary features of the invention. For example, if "the invention includes pipes and other features of class A" appears in the description, even if the claim applies for patent protection for "pipes and other features", the claim is likely to be interpreted as protecting only "class A pipes and other features". tubes and other features". Therefore, when describing non-essential constituent elements, such sentences can be rewritten as "in one embodiment of the present invention, including pipes of type A", or "according to one aspect of the present invention (According to one aspect of the present invention) present invention), including tubes of type A, in another aspect of the invention, ..." and similar sentences.

● Do not limit the purpose of the invention. Sentences such as "The object of the invention is... Another object of the invention is..." that limit the invention to the stated object should be avoided. When writing a patent, a short paragraph can be used to describe the benefits of the invention, instead of "this

The purpose of the invention is..." and other sentences. Or add sentences such as "Those who are familiar with this technology can better understand other benefits or other purposes of the patented invention defined in the claim after reading the description."

2.3.4 Brief Description of the Drawings (a brief description of each icon)

This part is a brief description of the icon, so it is only necessary to briefly describe the content of the icon. When writing this part, its writing characteristics are as follows:

● In order to avoid limiting the invention to the features shown in the figure, words and phrases such as "Fig. 1 is a ... view of the present invention." (the first figure is the ... figure of the present invention) and other similar sentences should be avoided . The inventor may suggest that the writer use "Fig. 1 is a ... view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention." (the first figure is the ... figure of the embodiment of the present invention) or "Fig. 1 is a ... view according to the present invention." (the first figure is ... figure according to the present invention) and similar sentences. ● Check that enough icons are used. Since the Examining Board can reject an application because a component within the scope of the application is not disclosed in the diagram, the inventor should check whether sufficient diagrams are used. In addition, in order to prevent the scope of the invention from being limited by the icons, sentences such as "the icons are not drawn according to the actual scale, so the invention is not limited to the proportions in the icons" may be added under appropriate circumstances.

2.3.5 Detailed Description (of the Invention) (detailed description of the invention) or Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiments (detailed description of the preferred embodiment/detailed description of the best solution)

Describe the content and characteristics of the invention in detail in words, which is the most important place to describe the invention in the patent. Examples of inventions (embodiments) are often used to assist in the explanation. When writing this part, the following writing styles should be avoided in particular:

● Use sentences such as "The invention includes...". Although the part that really defines the "patented invention" is the part of the patent protection scope, since the content of the description can be used to interpret the claim, unless it is a necessary component of the invention, it is recommended to use "an embodiment of the present invention includes..." Or "the embodiments of the present invention include ..." and other sentences to replace, so as not to limit the scope of the invention. ● Use only one embodiment. In order not to limit the invention to the only embodiment disclosed, as far as possible, various embodiments have been listed in the specification.

● Use strong words such as must (must), final (last), critical (key) or necessarily (necessarily). Words that limit invention should be avoided. Also, avoid using then (then) if you don't want to limit the order of the inventive steps.

2.3.6 Scope of Patent Application (Claims)

The part of the scope of the patent application includes more than one claim item, and each claim item is numbered sequentially with Arabic numerals. From a legal point of view, the claim item is the most important part of the patent.

The claim item is the place in the patent used to define the scope of patent protection, and it is also a pointer used to judge whether there is infringement. The request item consists of three parts: preamble, transitional phrase and body. The order is as follows:

● Foreword: It is the name of the invention, and sometimes includes the environment or conditions where the invention is used.

● Connecting words: immediately after the introduction, used to lead out the main part. Common conjunctions are comprising (including), consisting of (only included), and consisting essentially of (mainly included). The choice of conjunctions greatly affects the scope of patent protection, and different conjunctions will define different scopes of protection. For example, comprising means that the patent not only protects all the components (components or steps) included in the claim, but anything as long as it includes all the components in the claim, regardless of whether it includes other components that do not appear in the claim, constitutes Infringement; consisting of means that the patent only protects the components included in the claim, and when something includes other components that do not appear in the claim, it does not constitute infringement; consisting essentially of common in pharmaceutical patents, used to It means that the patent protection includes all components in the claim and other components that do not change the characteristics of the invention. If other pharmaceutical ingredients contain additives that will change the characteristics of the patented components, it does not constitute infringement.

● Subject: includes a series of components (components or steps) to be protected by the patent, and the relationship between each component. The article a will be added before the name of the component that appears for the first time, and the article the or said will be added before the name if it occurs again. Sometimes in order to distinguish two components with the same name, "first" (first) or "second" (second) is added before the name to make a distinction, such as the first metal layer and the second metal layer.

Common request items are divided into independent items (Independent Claim) and dependent items (Dependent Claim). The independent item is mainly used to define a wider scope of protection alone, including some basic components of the invention. Unlike independent items that can define the scope of protection independently, dependent items must be attached to other claim items, and its protection scope includes components in the attached claim item and its own components, further narrowing the protection scope of the attached claim item.

3 Other basic knowledge

3.1 Patent Term

The patent term is the validity period of the patent. The patent term for invention patents approved before June 8, 1995 is 17 years from the date of patent approval. Patents for inventions filed before June 8, 1995 but granted after June 8, 1995, have a patent term of 17 years from the grant date, or 20 years from the US filing date, whichever is longer. For invention patent applications filed after June 8, 1995, the patent term is 20 years from the filing date. The patent term of a design patent is 10 years from the date of patent approval. For invention patent applications starting from May 29, 2000, the US Patent Office will appropriately adjust the patent term according to the delay time of the patent office or the inventor. For example: If a patent application is not granted within three years due to delays in the patent office, the patent office will add the number of days exceeding three years to the

3.2 Patent Family

A patent family consists of at least one patent document with the same priority, which has been applied for, published or approved multiple times in different countries or international patent organizations.

Patent priority: The "Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property" stipulates that each member country of the Paris Union grants a preferential right to patent applicants from any country in the union, that is, a patent applicant from a country in the union formally applies for a patent for the first time in a member country. When applying for a patent for an invention-creation, when the applicant applies for a patent in other countries of the Union within the specified time, the applicant is entitled to the filing date of the first application.

"Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property": signed in Paris on March 20, 1883, and on September 19, 2002, the convention has 164 members including China. The protection objects of the "Paris Convention" are patents, utility models, Designs, trademarks, service marks, trade names, indications of source, appellations of origin, and repression of unfair competition.

3.3 World patents

World patent is the customary name for PCT patents whose country code is WO. Patent Cooperation Treaty, referred to as PCT, is an international cooperation treaty in the field of patents. PCT is an international application filed in accordance with PCT; the scope of legal protection of world patents depends on the legal status of patents of the same family; PCT does not grant "international patent authorization".

3.4 IPC symbols

IPC is the abbreviation of International Patent Classification (IPC), which is the common key for searching patents in various countries, and is adopted by most countries in the world. IPC mainly adopts a mixed marking method combining Latin letters and Arabic numerals. An IPC classification number is divided into several grades according to the affiliation relationship:

Department: identified by eight capital Latin letters from A to H

Major category: composed of corresponding department symbols plus two Arabic numerals

Subcategory: It consists of the corresponding major category symbols followed by uppercase Latin letters

Large group: It consists of two numbers separated by a slash after the corresponding sub-category symbol (the number before the slash is 1~3 digits, and the number after the slash is two zeros)

Small group: replace the two zeros behind the slash of the large group symbol with 2~4 digits

e.g. A61K9/02

A: Life needs (agriculture, light, medical)

A61: Medicine or Veterinary Science; Hygiene

A61K9/00: Pharmaceutical preparations characterized by a special physical shape

A61K9/02: Suppositories; Suppositories

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