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Ontario|Intellectual PropertyPatents 297 What is required in a Patent application? The following is a general overview of the information that is required for a Patent application. If you decide to apply for patent protection, you should consider contacting a lawyer or a registered patent agent for assistance because the application process and patent laws are complex, and an error can be fatal to your application.
Although the Patent Office does not provide a standard application form for you to fill out, your patent application must follow a standard format. You must complete a petition, pay a fee, and submit information that describes your design. The current filing fee is $150 for an individual inventor or a small business with less than two million dollars in gross revenue, and $300 for all other applicants.
- Petition
First, you must fill out a petition, which is the request for a patent. This form asks for the names and complete addresses of all of the inventors, a title for the invention, and the name of the patent agent who will be acting on your behalf.
- Patent Application
Second, you must submit information about your invention. There are three parts to the submission. These are the abstract, the specification, and drawings of the invention. The abstract is a short technical description of the invention and describes how it is different from other inventions. It is basically a summary.
The specification must include a clear and complete description of the invention and its usefulness. One very important part of the specification is the "claims". The claims are a definition of the boundaries of patent protection that you want. They are like a fence around the patented invention that protects it from trespassers. Everything that is not enclosed by this fence is freely available to be copied, manufactured, or sold by the public. The difficult part of the application is to write the claims so that the invention is defined broadly enough to provide the maximum protection, while also being specific enough to differentiate your invention from what others have done before you. A claim can only cover what you have invented. A lawyer or a registered patent agent can write the claims for your application.
The final part of the required information are the drawings of the invention. There are specific requirements that must be followed with respect to the size, quality, and detail of the drawings. The drawings should also clearly show all parts of the invention defined in the claims.
You should contact a patent lawyer or a registered patent agent to handle your patent application.
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