With a patent, you can restrict other individuals from creating, marketing and making any profits from your invention without your approval. The government can award patents to any person, group or corporation. There is no age restriction on who can be awarded a patent. Different countries have different procedures on how to get a patent.

Regardless of which part of the country you’re from, you must first assess all your prospects before applying for a patent and fill any necessary paperwork. You can either choose to apply for a provisional patent for immediate protection or a full patent that protects your invention for many years.

1. Assess Your Prospects

When planning how to get a patent, the first stage is to find out whether your invention is good enough to apply for a patent. If the idea is a process, a good, a machine or an improvement of any of those 3, you can apply for a patent. In order to qualify for a patent your idea must be new, not obvious and useful.

Next, you need to determine the category of your patent. You can either apply for a utility patent, a design patent or a plant patent. If your idea doesn’t fall under any of these categories, you should consider revising it in order to apply for a patent anywhere in the world. Also, you need to make sure that there isn’t already an existing patent overlapping your idea. Your new invention must be significantly different from other existing ideas. Therefore, you need to look through existing patents to make sure you don’t overlap with anything.

2. Filing An Application

Once you have assessed your prospects, the next step involves finding professional help for filing a patent. Here, you need to hire a patent lawyer. Ask for referrals from people who have filed patents before or do an online search of a patent lawyer in your area.

You can also choose to seek government assistance when filing a patent. Most countries usually provide necessary assistance to people looking to apply for patents in order to promote progress. There are self-help programs available to help you with filing the patent.

When applying for a patent, you should be careful about scams. There are some sites that might offer patent application services for a fee. However, before signing up on any site, you need to be cautious. Some sites might just steal your money while others will steal your idea and apply the patent for their own use. If you have hired a patent lawyer, make sure he/she goes through the contracts before signing anything.

Next, you need to choose whether you’re filing a provisional or full patent depending on the protection you want for your idea. Once you have made your choice, fill the patent application appropriately including all the pertinent information and necessary drawings.

Now you can submit the application electronically or through mail, whatever you prefer. Make sure the application contains all the additional documents required for the patent to go through. Once you have paid the filing fee, you should wait for an approval or denial of your patent which might take some time.