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Intellectual Property Research: Patent Regulations

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO)

  • General Information Concerning Patents
  • Multi-Step U.S. Patent Search Strategy
  • Official Gazette for Patents
  • Patent Basics
    • A U.S. patent gives an inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. A plant patent provides additional rights on the “parts” of plants (e.g., a plant patent on an apple variety would include rights on the apples from the plant variety). What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on a patent, the inventor may initiate legal action. U.S. patents are effective only within the U.S. and its territories and possessions.
  • Patent Center
    • Provides access to the dockets for issued or published patent applications. Use this database to view an application's prosecution history and continuity information.
  • Patent Public Search
    • New web-based patent search application that will replace internal legacy search tools
  • State Trademark Information Links
    • USPTO page with links to state trademark web sites
  • Trademark Basics
    • A trademark is generally a word, phrase, symbol, or design, or a combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. A service mark is the same as a trademark, except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than goods.
  • USPTO Website

REGULATIONS

U.S. Copyright regulations are found in title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.).  The library has a print set of the official C.F.R. (Mulberry Wing, ask at Circulation for specific location)  Electronic versions are available through the Government Printing Office (GovInfo), Lexis and Westlaw.

  • 37 C.F.R. Chapters III & IV
  • Official version of the C.F.R. Each title is updated annually on a rotating basis: 28-41 are revised as of July 1. However, it is not unusual for the publication of Title 37 to be delayed.

HeinOnline offers full historic coverage of the C.F.R., which can be useful when faced with an issue based on previous copyright regulations.

Administrative Materials

  • Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP)
    • Procedural guide to prosecuting patents before the USPTO. The manual is also an excellent resource for learning how to write and research patents. While Lexis and West publish their own manual in print and electronically on their databases, it is also available for free from at the USPTO's web site.
  • Administrative Decisions
    • The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is an administrative law tribunal within the USPTO. It contains an Appeals Division, which hears appeals from patent examiner decisions, and a Trials Division, which hears adversarial proceedings such as inter partes review (IPR), post-grant review (PGR), and derivation proceedings. You can find PTAB decisions using a free USPTO database, Westlaw, or Lexis:
  • Historic Patent Decisions

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