Please provide as much information on the Invention Disclosure Form as possible to assist us in making this determination. If this evaluation is positive we may send the disclosure out to an appropriate patent attorney, one with undergraduate and graduate training in your field. If this decision is positive, and we are in agreement that the invention would be marketable, we may file for patent coverage. First office actions from the Patent and Trademark Office are rarely received in less than six months and patent issuance can take from a few months to several years, depending on the number of applications being examined in the particular technology area, the degree to which the patent examiner objects to the patent claims and the degree to which we wish to contest the examiner s decisions. Within a year after US filing, we will need to decide on the wisdom, the need, and the extent of foreign filing.
Patents are only enforceable in the country in which they are issued.
Therefore, to prohibit another party from making, using, or selling your invention in Japan, for example, a patent must be obtained in Japan for the invention. Many foreign Patent Offices will allow an application filed in their country to be accorded the filing date of the earlier-filed United States application, as long as the application is filed in their country within one year of filing the United States application. This allows the foreign application to be examined without considering any patent or publication which issued before the foreign filing date, but after the United States filing date The patenting process is expensive. Thus, as soon as possible, we will begin to explore licensing of the technology, a process that frequently results in external sponsorship of the patenting costs. The conversion of a research idea into a tangible product with actual sales can be a richly rewarding experience.