Significance

• The patent blocks a company or an individual from using, selling or manufacturing the protected concept during these 20 years unless a licensing agreement financially compensates the inventor for access to her intellectual property, writes Vern Maine and Associates, a law firm in New Hampshire.
  
  

Categories

• Utility patents fall into three types of inventions according to the University of Michigan Resource Library: mechanical innovations, electrical concepts, and chemical novel ideas. Under these umbrellas, inventors can describe methods, processes, novel machines or new ways to use something.
  
  

Filing

• The inventor may start with the filing of a provisional patent application to gain a one-year protection while refining the concept, states the USPTO. He can follow with the full patent application that adds an additional 20-year protection. Some inventors elect to skip the provisional application and choose the full submission as their first step.