Can I patent a Capstone final college project?

Question

Can I patent a Capstone final college project?

Answer 1

Hello,



Yes, first you can file provisional patent application for your project/idea, subsequent to your prototype or model proven, then you can apply non-provisional patent by describing completely about your invention.



Copyright is for artistic, literary, musical work etc., therefore you may not be able to protect functionality of your project under copyright, only you can protect the content of your project under copyright.



You can understand the process of patenting in the following http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/index.jsp



Good luck

Answer 2

You automatically own copyright on any creative description, drawings or photos you create for your invention. However, copyright does not prevent others from using your ideas, procedures or systems. 17 USC § 102(b).



For a small fee you can file a pre-emptive "provisional patent application" (PPA) in the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) giving a full and "enabling" description and specification of your invention, usually with at least one drawing, if not thirty. You do not have to "claim" anything specific in a PPA. The PPA reserves your right to file a "utility" patent up to a year later, after you discover that people are willing to invest in your invention and help pay for the more serious expenses of patent prosecution.



At the very least, you can put "Patent pending" on your documentation for a year. You may also file another PPA sometime later, perhaps describing some newly developed feature, and get another year of "Patent pending" on that feature (but having lost the value of the earlier priority date for whatever you disclosed in the initial PPA). But since your PPA is "secret" until you reference it as a source document in a utility application, nobody needs to know EXACTLY what you're claiming.



Bottom line, if anyone later tries to "steal" your invention and claim they invented it BEFORE you did, you can produce an officially filed PPA document that fully disclosed your invention and they would have to at LEAST prove that their invention happened prior to your filing date.



Word to the wise: if you believe an invention may be valuable, then it is typically worth spending the time and money to talk it over with a patent attorney with experience in your field. It is a lot better to pay a few bucks for good advice than to find out you blew it on your own and have nobody to blame but yourself.



Note: if you have a "group" of people involved in the invention, they may EACH be legally considered "inventors" and would have to join in the patent application at some point, meaning that you cannot claim any part of any invention for which you did not officially name the actual person who invented it.



You also should keep detailed daily notes of your progress, in case you ever have to prove "actual invention" in court. They should be dated and occasionally reviewed and signed by others familiar with your work (as proof you didn't just back-date things you thought of later).

Answer 3

WRM:



I must say bcnu has some AWESOME information..



All I would suggest are a few things to fill in the gaps as follows:



Do you know about the Provisional Patent Application? It only costs $125 and was designed by Congress to give individual inventors a chance at bringing their inventive ideas to market easily. It is SUPER EASY to do..



To see the top 10 reasons to file a Provisional Patent Application please watch the second video in this blog.

http://www.filepatentapplications.com/blog/



If a provisional patent application looks like the right thing for you to do then take a look at another website that shows EXACTLY how to file one using a video format.

http://provisionalpatentvideo.com/



If you need to know how to get your product sold on TV or to Costco, or Home Depot, or Target and the like then you might also enjoy reading this information by the Ginsu Knife guy! It is pretty cool. He gives you all his contacts and personal email!

http://bit.ly/GinsuKnifeGuy1



Of course you could ALSO just go to the US Patent Office and figure out how to file a patent yourself. Here is the link..

http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/index.jsp

The flow chart there is pretty nice to give you an idea how to do what you want to do!



Their patent search is hard to use and you need special programs to look at the patents… Instead, consider using Google Patent Search!



Here is how you can use Google Patent Search to search for an "Oscillating inertial microbalance"

http://www.google.com/patents?id=M5GRAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA6&dq=Oscillating+inertial+microbalance&hl=en&ei=vrbGTvGeDoXhiAKWpfXxDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false



Just type the term you want to search for in the search box. Play with MANY variants of your inventive idea.



Also, for a more global patent search look here:

http://worldwide.espacenet.com/advancedSearch?locale=en_EP



Remember... Patents are MOSTLY "Improvements" on other inventions.. So, while you may see something SIMILAR to your inventive idea it does not mean that you cannot patent your IMPROVEMENT.. Example... A tire is an IMPROVEMENT on a wagon wheel. A radial biased ply tire is an IMPROVEMENT on a non radial biased tire. There are over 10,000 patents on tires... Nearly every single one is an improvement!



And… a special gift for you is a sample Non Disclosure (also called an NDA) that you would have folks sign when you show them your inventive idea. You can change it up and use others but if you have NOTHING now it is a very good start written by my lawyer who charged me a TON for it!

http://www.4lowprice.info/images/NDA_GeneralMutual.doc



If you like my answer can you vote on it?



Thanks,



Dave