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Patent and Trademark Resource Center at Tuskegee University: Patent

This guide will assist you in navigating the resources that we provide at Tuskegee University's Library as an official Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC).

What is a patent?

A United States patent gives you, the inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the United States. A plant patent gives you 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 your patent, you may initiate legal action. United States patents are effective only within the United States and its territories and possessions.

Types of Patents:

  1. Utility - for inventing a new or improved and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter
  2. Design - for inventing a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture
  3. Plant - for inventing or discovering and asexually reproducing any distinct and new variety of plant

Your Patent Must Meet the Four Criteria to be Issued:

  1. Able to be used. The invention must work and not just be a theory.
  2. A clear description of how to make and use the invention.
  3. Invention must be "new" or "novel". It should not have been done before.
  4. "Not obvious" as related to a change of something already invented before.

The Patent Process

1. Determine if your intellectual property meets the criteria of a patent and is patentable.

2. Search the Patent Public Search using the basic or advanced search tool.

3. Determine the type of patent you need: Utility or Design or Plant

4. Obtain a Patent Center account. Click HERE to get started. 

5. Submit application

6. If the examiner determines that your application meets the patent requirements, you or your legal representative will receive a Notice of Allowance and Fee(s) Due. 

NOTE: For more details about the patent process, visit the USPTO's Patent Process Overview. 

Step-by-Step Guide to Start a Preliminary U.S. Patent and Trademark Search

The Patent and Trademark Resource Center Program also provides a CBT (computer-based training) tutorial with a detailed review of the step-by-step strategy. The current CBT covers searching using Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC).

Guide for Advanced Searching of the U.S. Patent Public Search

BASIC: Patent Public Search

ADVANCED: Patent Public Search

Examples of Patents

Super Soaker, Invented by Lonnie G. Johnson (Patent Name: Double tank pinch trigger pump water gun)

First Home Security System by Marian van Brittan Brown (Patent Name: Home Security System Utilizing Television Surveillance)

Double Dutch Machine by Tahira Reid (Patent Name: Jump rope device)