What is Patent? Ultimate Guide to Intellectual Property in 2025

Intellectual property (IP) is crucial for protecting innovations, business ideas, and creativity in producing goods and services globally. So, if you have a unique idea or an invention that can lead to massive profit or hugely change the world, it is advisable to protect your creation. After that, improve your innovation or creation and market your idea.

This blog post provides valuable insights into intellectual property, the kind you might acquire, and how to protect it.

What's Intellectual Property?

IP is a broad name covering the intangible assets category owned by a company or individual. These assets are legally protected by law, preventing their application or use without the owner's consent. In other words, intangible assets are those without a physical form.

Intellectual property relates to the concept that human mind creations should receive the same protective rights as tangible assets. Many developed economies provide legal measures to protect both types of property.

Understanding Intellectual Property

Corporations pay particular attention to the recognition and safeguarding of IPs because of the latter's importance in a progressively more information-intensive global environment.

Developing intellectual property is a capital-intensive process that demands quality human capital for a long time. This translates into heavy investments by organizations and individuals that others should not get to touch without rights.

Securing value from intellectual assets and ensuring no one else gains value from them is a core function of any business. Though they are intangible assets, they are, in many cases, worth more than all the equipment, facilities and inventory a firm owns. They provide a source of competitive advantage, and consequently, they are guarded and defended by the businesses that operate them.

What is a Patent?

A copyright can protect works, such as books, music, movies, and other forms of artistry. Trademarking addresses the company IP, including slogans and logos. A patent propounds a legal safeguard for an invention, for instance, a product, process, or machine.

According to the U.S. Constitution, in Article I, section 8, Congress authorizes Congress to "provide for the progress of science and helpful art by securing that authors and inventors are granted exclusive right to their creations and discoveries for limited times. "

In other words, a patent grants the inventor the legal monopoly over the invented item. This is the case whereby you, being the inventor, gain full exclusive rights upon the invention or idea you have patented, and nobody has the right to produce, sell, or even use your product without your consent.

Provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Office or USPTO, patents usually last a maximum of 20 years from filing the patent application.

Types of Patents?

There are three primary types of patents, including:

1. Utility patents

Sometimes, people think patents only refer to intangible assets. In accordance to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a utility can be awarded to a machine, any new and useful process, a manufactured item, or any novel and beneficial improvement. 

2. Design patents

A design patent entails a new, unique, and decorative design for an article of manufacture. Therefore, it may cover the specific manner in which your invention will appear. A rather exceptional example of a design that was patented is the Coca-Cola bottle image. This particular design is very easily recognizable and is a part of the image associated with the Coca-Cola trademark and thus cannot be imitated by another company.

 3. Plant patents

Actually, a patent may be issued to an individual who discovers or 'invents and asexually reproduces a unique and new variety of plant.' For example, NIHF inductee Luther Burbank, who developed over eight hundred strains and varieties of plants, knew the worth of patenting his products.

How do I Determine if My Creation Needs a Patent?

The patent process and laws may seem challenging, especially if you're new to the creation world and IP. To simplify this, we've come up with three vital questions you should ask yourself about the invention you want to patent.

1. Is my creation useful?

Your invention may be completely antsy and lavish; however, it will not secure patent protection unless it is helpful.

2. Is my creation a novel?

An invention can definitely improve on previous creations, but it must have at least one feature that makes it stand out from other inventions and things that already exist, some function that existing inventions cannot perform, for it to be patented.

When you conduct a U. S. patent search and look up prior art, you will be able to find out whether your invention fulfills this particular necessity. It will also guide you in concentrating on creating novelties for the invention.

3. Is my creation non-obvious?

Your invention must be intelligent; it cannot be something that one accidentally encounters without any struggle.

After answering these questions, the next step is to start the process of obtaining your patent.

Steps to Obtaining a Patent

If you're unsure of the process, you should take a patent and protect your work by following these steps:

1. Identify whether you require protection of any intellectual property right or not.

There are numerous types of IP, such as patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. Therefore, you must identify the relevant type(s) of IP for your invention before proceeding.

2. Determine if your invention is worthy of being patented

For an invention to obtain patent protection, it must be new, must not be obvious, and must have a practical use. A search for existing patents is a part of the evaluation of the parameters that define the possibility of a patent pending status, and to begin the process, visit uspto.gov.

3. Determine a category of the patent that applies to your invention

Depending on the kind of business you are in, you could require a utility patent, a plant patent, a design patent or all. It is important to have basic knowledge of these patent types when planning to start an application for any of them.

4. Prepare to apply

It's time to think tactfully about your application, estimate the expenditures, and decide whether to use professional legal services. If you are interested in a utility or plant patent, you should decide whether you would file for a provisional or non-provisional application. A provisional application is relatively cheap compared to a nonprovisional one. But you can use it to formally establish a filing date for your invention to be later claimed in a nonprovisional application.

5. Finish and send in your first application.

Before filing for a patent, it is wise to use the patent application guides developed by the USPTO. It is also important to note that, when signing the application, a person should ensure that they have read the written specification and have included the claims section. Remember that you are not going to be able to enter any other evidence into your application after filing the documents with the USPTO.

6. Take a patent examiner to court

Once you have completed filling in all the necessary information, your examiner will carefully study your application to ensure that it meets all the laid down criteria. Remember, if you have procured legal assistance after that, a patent attorney or an agent shall file your application to the USPTO. USPTO will only deal with the attorney or the agent.

These steps provide you with a foundational knowledge of the patent process; for more detailed information, visit uspto.gov.

7. Receive an approval

Suppose your patent examiner accepts your application successfully. In that case, you will receive a notice of allowance, which lays out the issue fee needed and can also contain the publication fee that should be paid for your patent to be issued.

 8. Maintain your patent protection.

Once you are granted a patent, you will have to ensure that your patent remains valid. As a note, when using utility patents to protect your rights beyond four, eight, and twelve years from the issue date, you need to pay maintenance fees.

These steps provide you with a foundational knowledge of the patent process; for more detailed information, visit uspto.gov.

Other Types of Intellectual Property

Here are other types of IP.

1. Copyrights

Copyrights grant authors and creators of the original product the immunity to legally copy the original work. Books can be copyrighted like any other music album, which is copyrighted with the authors' permission. A copyright also gives the initial producers the right through a licensing agreement to allow anyone to use the work. 

2. Trademarks

Trademarking is a noticeable symbol, logo, or phrase that legally distinguishes a product from another product in the market. A trademark is granted individually to a company, meaning that the specific trademark belongs to a certain company only. This means it owns the trademark, and no one else must use or replicate it.

A trademark is generally understood as a part of a company's brand. For example, Coca-Cola's trademark and company name belong to the Coca-Cola Company.

3. Franchises

A franchise is a license in which a company, individual, or party known as the franchisee purchases the right to operate a business that is identical to the parent business. It permits them to operate under the franchisor's name, trademark, secret information, and method of being.

The franchisee is commonly an independent trader who manages the franchise. This license permits the franchisee to trade under the company name. Thus, the franchisee pays a certain sum to the franchisor at the time of entering into the business, such as start-up fees and ongoing licensing fees.

4. Trade Secrets

Trade secrets refer to business information that is not available to the public and provides the trade secret owner commercial gain or benefits. The company must keep trade secrets confidential. Trade secrets are normally created by the research and development department. This is why some employers demand that their employees pencil down on non-disclosure agreements (NDA.

Trade secrets could be a design, recipe, pattern, formula, etc. They are employed to develop business strategies which establish a strategic positioning of the company's products to consumers and gain market edge.

5. Digital Assets

Proprietary software code, online digital content or algorithms are also considered to belong to intellectual property in digital form.

What's Intellectual Property Infringement?

Intellectual property rights are rights attached to intellectual property. These rights enable IP owners to prevent others from mimicking, recreating, and profiting from their innovations without permission.

Let's explore various IP infringements:  

1. Patent infringement: patents protect inventions and creations from being reproduced, used, copied, or sold by other people. Patents cover manufactured products and machines, designs, etc. You should register patents through the regional office of patents in your jurisdiction. Patent infringement is when a person makes, uses, sells, or even offers to sell an invention whose design has been patented or protected by a license without permission from the patent owner.
2. Trademark infringement: A trademark refers to a sign, logo, phrase, letter, word, or a combination of these that an individual legally uses to distinguish the product or goods being sold by him from the products of others. Trademark infringement is when an unauthorized individual uses that trademark in a way that could easily lead to confusion as to the identity of the producer or supplier of the particular commodity in question or as to the extent of affiliation between the producer, supplier or marketer of the particular good and the registered holder of the trademark.
3. Counterfeiting: Counterfeiting is a form of trademark infringement. Counterfeit goods are normally substandard or unlawful copies of the original product, and their main aim is to deceive the customer into believing that they are getting the genuine product.
4. Copyright violations: This entails copying an original work in its entirety or partly, such as in art, music or novels, by a person who has no permit to do so. What may be considered an infringement does not necessarily have to be an exact copy of the original to be so considered?

How to Avoid IP Infringement?

IP infringements, in most cases, occur unintentionally. To prevent your company from IP infringement, legal issues include ensuring it doesn't use trademarked or copyrighted materials without users' approval. Also, ensure your logo or brand doesn't resemble another company because this could confuse customers into mistaking your products for another brand.

Always do a patent search to ensure your idea is unique and find ways to license your creations through the right channels. You can contact an intellectual property attorney to guide you and make sure you aren't using another business-protected intellectual property.

Develop a contract stating that any creative work designed becomes part of your company's property and not the employee or contractor you hired to do the work for the business. 

Can I Transfer Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property rights can be transferred, just like physical property. In the legal aspect, a written document signed by the owner is required.

In most cases, it may not be in your best interest to give away your rights – a licensing agreement with an individual who will develop your IP and pay you a royalty for that will prove to be a better deal. And if you are granting ownership rights to an IP to a third party, a joint owner may be in a position to do certain things with the IP that you have no say about.

Therefore, if you are in a position to provide ownership rights to a third party, seek counsel from an intellectual property lawyer first.

Bottom Line

Business assets come in different shapes and sizes, and some don't have a physical form. They are referred to as intangible assets, and they still hold value in a company as tangible assets.

You can patent and trademark your innovations, brand names and logos to help your customers recognize your company and products. As a company, ensure you follow the steps to protect your IP against infringement by others. Kindly contact one of our experts here if you have any question on patent and intellectual properties.