The California Intellectual Property Law Firm of Sebastian Gibson provides the following advice regarding Patents and Intellectual Property:

The Patent and Trademark Office grants patents which are a property right to an inventor. To be patentable, an invention must be novel and non-obvious. What a person cannot patent is a perpetual motion device, abstract idea, a law of nature or any naturally occurring substance or any invention publicly disclosed more than 12 months ago.

A utility patent protects the functionality of an invention. It is granted for any new, useful and non-obvious process, machine, manufactured article, composition of matter, and to new and useful improvements of inventions. A utility patent is good for 20 years from the date of filing, and our law firm's attorneys can assist you with this process.

A design patent protects the look of an item. It is granted to protect the overall appearance of an invention and is good for 14 years from the date of the issuance of the patent.

A plant patent is utilized to protect a new variety of plant. It is good for 20 years from the date of filing the application, optimally with our California copyright infringement law firm's lawyers help.

While a patent granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office protects a patent within the U.S., its territories and possessions, the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) allows a patent applicant to achieve protection of an invention in other Asian and European countries who are signatories of the PCT.

The statutory language used for patents by intellectual property licensing attorneys' states that the right conferred by the patent grant is "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the U.S. or 'importing' it into the U.S." The right granted therefore, and defined by intellectual property licensing lawyers, is the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention, not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention.

Without a patent obtained by the inventor, with or without the help of attorneys, others can make, sell and import your invention, without your permission, and avoid paying you any compensation, royalties or license fees.

To properly apply for and protect your invention, it is advisable that a firm of attorneys first perform a patent search. The California patent lawyers utilized by our law firm from other law firms and our "Of Counsel" attorney can perform this search for you. If after performing this search, a patent licensing attorney or lawyer feels your invention has a chance of receiving a patent, one of the law firm's intellectual property attorneys utilized by our copyright & trademark infringement law firm will then seek to protect your rights by means of the appropriate patent application based upon your budget and goals.

For those clients with a limited budget who wish to quickly protect their rights, a provisional patent application may be appropriate. Though the provisional patent will expire within one year if it is not upgraded to a utility patent, it will give the inventor a priority date while further resources can be gathered to seek additional infringement protection.

Additionally, one of the California intellectual property lawyers utilized by our Palm Springs desert area copyright & trademark law firm from other law firms or our "Of Counsel" attorney (serving clients in Riverside, the Inland Empire, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, the Central Coast & Santa Barbara from our law offices in Rancho Mirage, CA) can file a Document Disclosure to help prove that you are the originator of an idea on a certain date. However, the Document Disclosure will not give the inventor the priority date that a provisional patent does. The Document Disclosure must be properly filed with the USPTO and is good only if the inventor does not make any public disclosure of the invention.

After a intellectual property licensing lawyer or attorney files a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, it is usual for at least one Office Action to be issued by the USPTO. That Office Action will commonly reject some of the claims of the patent application. It is necessary at that point to present arguments to the patent examiner why the invention is patentable based upon the differences between the invention and the prior art cited by the examiner. The expertise of an intellectual property licensing attorney with patent infringement experience can be invaluable in this area.

At the California Copyright & Trademark Law Firm of Attorney R. Sebastian Gibson, the California intellectual property attorneys associated with the firm are involved in the licensing of patents and a patent attorney from San Diego who is "Of Counsel" to the law firm prepares patent applications for provisional, utility and design patents. Our law firm's San Diego intellectual property attorney who is "Of Counsel" to our law firm, can perform patent searches and respond to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Actions, and can additionally assist patent clients in finding manufacturing locations within the U.S. and abroad to produce their goods. For those clients not interested in actually producing their patented items, licensing lawyers such as Sebastian Gibson can assist them in licensing their patents to other manufacturers.

Let the California intellectual property attorneys and lawyers associated with our Palm Springs Desert Area law firm, serving Riverside, the Inland Empire, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, the Central Coast & Santa Barbara from our copyright & trademark infringement law offices in Rancho Mirage, CA, protect and advise you with regard to your inventions and business methods you would like to patent and any other intellectual property developed by you before your ideas slip away.

California Intellectual Property Licensing Lawyer Sebastian Gibson is neither admitted to practice before the patent bar as a patent attorney nor should anything be construed in this website to cause anyone to believe that Sebastian Gibson is either a patent expert or a patent specialist. Only attorneys admitted before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a patent attorney may submit an application for a patent. The attorneys and lawyers utilized by the offices of Sebastian Gibson to apply for patents are admitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and are authorized to make such applications.