Different Kinds of Inventions Articles | Invention

By: J.Morgan

You may or may not know this, but inventions fall into three different categories of patents.  These are as follows: - design patents, plant patents and utility patents. Every single idea ever invented fits into one of the above mentioned categories when submitted for patenting and having a little knowledge about these different kinds of patents will afford you the luxury of protecting your invention and putting a stop to anyone else using it as their idea.

Let's face it – there is no way you want to spend lots of time and money developing your idea and turning it into an invention only to have someone else get the same idea patented before you do.  Details of the three different kinds of inventions are shown below in order to help you get started with the process. 

Understanding the Three Different Patent Categories

The Design Patent

This patent, as the name suggests, only protects the look of the invention and you should be aware that it does not cover the operation of the idea, just as it does not take into account the dimensions, shape and color of the invention.

The Plant Patent

Your idea will fall into the plant patents category when you have created a new kind of plant life or any asexually reproduced plant form.  Included in this category are hybrids, mutants and plants discovered in uncultivated areas.
 
The Utility Patent

This is the category covering the broadest area of inventions and is the strongest patent available to inventors.   You will find inventions which improve products or make them more useful in this category along with machinery and processes.  

The Qualities of Inventions

Prior to an invention qualifying for a patent in any one of the above mentioned categories, certain qualities have to be present.  For example, to be categorized as a utility patent it has to be considered to be machinery with moving parts and circuitry of some description.  It must also be an “an article of manufacture” which basically means that such a product can be manufactured and sold on to consumers.

An additional quality of the utility patent involves your invention being a method or process producing a true and useful outcome.  It has to have “a composition of matter” which accounts for products like chemicals, medication, and soaps.  The utility patent also takes into account any addition to, or improvement of, existing inventions too. 

However unimportant or simple, all inventions have to have some kind of usefulness, as well as being different to anything else available on the market.  Other inventors also have to see the product you have patented as unique and a totally new idea.

Inventions in the design patent category must be non functional and new.  This means the look of the existing product will be totally different but the way in which the product works is not altered or improved. 

The plant patent is the least used category and in order to qualify the invention must be a completely different and totally new product.