An applicant generally qualifies as a micro entity if the applicant and inventors each have gross annual incomes less than three times the median household income for the preceding year (currently $153,051). Higher education institutions may also qualify for micro entity status. There is a form that is filed with the patent to request this rate.
If you qualify a lot of the fees charged by the USPTO can be reduced by 75%.
The preparation of an application for patent and the conducting of the proceedings in the United States Patent and Trademark Office to obtain the patent is an undertaking requiring the knowledge of patent law and rules and Office practice and procedures, as well as knowledge of the scientific or technical matters involved in the particular invention.
Inventors may prepare their own applications and file them in the USPTO and conduct the proceedings themselves, but unless they are familiar with these matters or study them in detail, they may get into considerable difficulty. While a patent may be obtained in many cases by persons not skilled in this work, there would be no assurance that the patent obtained would adequately protect the particular invention.
Most inventors employ the services of registered patent attorneys or patent agents. The law gives the USPTO the power to make rules and regulations governing conduct and the recognition of patent attorneys and agents to practice before the USPTO. Persons who are not recognized by the USPTO for this practice are not permitted by law to represent inventors before the USPTO. The USPTO maintains a register of attorneys and agents. To be admitted to this register, a person must comply with the regulations prescribed by the Office, which require a showing that the person is of good moral character and of good repute and that he or she has the legal, scientific, and technical qualifications necessary to render applicants for patents a valuable service. Certain of these qualifications must be demonstrated by the passing of an examination. Those admitted to the examination must have a college degree in engineering or physical science or the equivalent of such a degree.
The USPTO registers both attorneys at law and persons who are not attorneys at law. The former persons are now referred to as “patent attorneys,” and the latter persons are referred to as “patent agents.” Both patent attorneys and patent agents are permitted to prepare an application for a patent and conduct the prosecution in the USPTO. Patent agents, however, cannot conduct patent litigation in the courts or perform various services that the local jurisdiction considers as practicing law. For example, a patent agent could not draw up a contract relating to a patent, such as an assignment or a license, if the state in which he or she resides considers drafting contracts as practicing law.
The USPTO cannot recommend any particular attorney or agent, or aid in the selection of an attorney or agent, as by stating, in response to inquiry that a named patent attorney, agent, or firm, is “reliable” or “capable.” The USPTO maintains a directory of registered patent attorneys and agents.
In employing a patent attorney or agent, the inventor executes a power of attorney, which is filed in the USPTO and made of record in the application file. When a registered attorney or agent has been appointed, the Office does not communicate with the inventor directly but conducts the correspondence with the attorney or agent since he or she is acting for the inventor thereafter although the inventor is free to contact the USPTO concerning the status of his or her application. The inventor may remove the attorney or agent by revoking the power of attorney.
A proper #patent_search is one of the most important steps in patent process. A general search will give you a predicted patent category as well as a list of the closest patent references that were found. With this data you can either decide to keep your patent as is, change your patent description to include new specifications, the add more limiting patent claims, broaden patent claims, or you may decide to not patent at all. Whatever your choice is it is import and to do it before filing, because after filing making changes to the application is either more difficult or impossible.
The search service that you choose should give you a report with options based on your needs, but the direction that you go based on the report will be up to you. If you chose to do the search yourself google patent is your first choice for simplicity and ease of use. The USPTO however does have a more comprehensive set of patent application documents and some tutorials on how to start.
