How to File a Software Patent
A patent is a grant from the government that gives an inventor exclusive rights to benefit from an invention for a limited time. A software patent is a patent on any performance of a computer realized through the means of a computer program. Patent laws are one of the ways the United States protects people's intellectual property. Unlike copyrights and trademarks, patents are not automatic under common law and thus must be applied for through the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
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Things You'll Need
- Proof of Originality Patent Lawyer for Any Settlement or Cross-Licensing Existing Copy or Written Documentation and Hard Copy of the Created Software
Instructions
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How to File a Software Patent
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Make sure that the software is original and useful to the public. For a patent to be approved, it must be new, not obvious and useful. The usefulness of the software is determined by the benefit it provides to the public. Check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site (see Resources) for similar inventions that have already been given patent status, as a helpful resource and to prevent duplicating a product.
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Develop a full written description of your unique software and amenities. This is a very complicated process and you may need to contact a patent attorney before you write it. The proposal should include the how the software works, how it was created and the benefits offered by its creation. Look at software programs that already have patent status and use their proposals as a guide when writing yours.
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Contact an attorney and create a formal application for your patent proposal. Without experience or formal training, it is very difficult to get through the application process for a patent without making errors. Thus it is important to hire an attorney who has experience writing and defending patents.
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Send patent proposal to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This should be done by your attorney. Usually it takes about four to six weeks for an attorney to research, help write and file a patent.
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Wait for approval. You can check your patent's status by visiting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Web site. Click on the "How To Search" link in the upper-right corner, and then on "TRACK patent status."
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Tips & Warnings
Patents in recent times have been becoming easier to obtain in theory, but harder to obtain in actuality. For a first-time patent creator, it is most beneficial to patent correctly without the risk of patent infringement or cross-patenting. Today, it has become more common for the average person to patent through patenting software kits, or attorneys with a patenting license.
Software patents are not easily obtainable. The extent to which they are granted is an issue of growing concern within the United States. Three big questions have been consistently asked in the past: Where the boundaries of patentability lie, what the difference between inventiveness and obviousness should be and whether software patents encourage or discourage innovation. Other conflicts have been serious problems with software patent development; computer-implemented invention issues; overlap with copyright; free and open source software issues; and general software developer unhappiness.
