电子书免费下载 Nolo's Patents for Beginners, 4th Edition

The principles of patent protection have changed little since 1790. If you devise a novel invention and qualify for a patent, you can, for a limited time, prevent anyone else from making, selling, or using it. For two centuries, businesses and inventors have used patent protection for products, processes, plants, and designs. However, the technological changes of the past 20 years have dramatically altered the patent landscape. The number of utility patent applications has nearly tripled since 1980. As of 2000, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) had issued over six million utility patents.

The explosive growth in biotechnology, information exchange, and the advent of business method and software patents has resulted in more patents being issued than ever before. Patents are now considered an integral part of a corporation’s strategic business plan. And this strategy is not limited to corporate boardrooms. For example, the total revenue from patents for non-profit universities has gone from less than one million dollars in 1980 to over half a billion dollars today.

At the same time, the Internet is creating new avenues of public access to the patent application process. Anyone with an Internet connection can now search patent records at the PTO. Patent forms and rules can now be easily downloaded. Moreover, the first electronic filing of a utility patent occurred in 2000. Even more importantly, the dramatic advances in technology around the globe have been an incentive to getting new changes in U.S. patent law off the ground.

To stay current with the modern world of patents, we have a created a compact modern patent guide that explains patent law and provides clear instructions for deciphering and searching for patents. This book is intended for use by inventors, educators, entrepreneurs, students, and business people who must deal with and understand basic principles of patent law.