Patent Attorney and Founder
Hey everybody, I’m J.D. Houvener, your host of the Bold Today’s Show, where you, the inventor or entrepreneur, get your daily inspiration to make the world a better place. We’ve been talking about every single step and what it takes to get your invention a patent. This is the process, and you’ve made it all the way to the end. Congratulations! The only last step we have is to issue your patent.
Once you’ve gone through the steps of patentability, filed your application, and gone through the arduous prosecution phase, the Patent Office, if they’re satisfied, will provide you what’s called a notice of allowance. That’s a touchdown. That’s when the bells and whistles, the confetti pops – they have said you have earned your way into getting a patent granted. But we’re just telling you that it’s allowable. You now have to go through a couple more documents, of course, to get your patent actually granted and issued.
They say, “Look, this is your last chance. If you want to file any continuation or divisional applications at this point, you’ve got to file them right now.” It’s crucial because if you get your patent issued, nothing else, no other continuations can be filed from that. We talked yesterday about the all-important continuations, continuations in part, and divisional applications. Please work with your patent attorney to make sure you’ve got everything buttoned up before you pay that issue fee.
Once you pay that issue fee, it’s just a matter of a month or so before you get that beautiful certificate, that ribbon copy of the patent that you’ve been waiting for all these years. Once the patent arrives, that is your grant. You have been granted 20 years from the date of filing that you are the only one allowed. You have exclusive rights to making, using, selling, or importing that invention on that claim set. Congratulations! You made it. If you have any questions about trying to get to this point in this moment, please give us a call.