Business Law

Protect the Features of an Invention

A utility application is an application that seeks to patent and protect the structural features and/or functional features of an invention. A design application, on the other hand, is an application that seeks to patent and protect an ornamental feature of an invention.

Whether you should file a utility or design application depends on the kind of invention you have, your goals, and the kind of protection you seek. Not all inventions can be a subject of a design application. It is best that you consult with a patenting agency such as Invent Help or a registered patent attorney to determine which application to file.

A provisional application is usually filed to preserve an early filing date, which may become critical in determining who was first to invent the invention. It usually has the components of a regular application, except for the claims section. A regular application must be filed one year after filing the provisional application. Otherwise, the provisional application will be abandoned.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) does not publish or examine provisional applications. Provisional applications do not issue into patents. While many benefits can be derived from filing a provisional application, patent law imposes complex requirements for obtaining the full benefits from a provisional application. Therefore, it is important to talk to a registered patent attorney regarding provisional applications.

“Patent pending” means an application that is “complete,” as defined by patent law, has been filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Once obtained, an inventor may mark the product that is the subject matter of the filed application with the “Patent Pending” mark, which may add marketing value. Additionally, some inventors may find it easier to attract investors upon obtaining the “patent pending” status.

Having an early filing date is critical for an inventor in establishing ownership of the invention in the United States and all around the world. You can read much more about patenting process on InventHelp as well – learn why new inventors turn to InventHelp.

Business

Corporate Branding Services

Are you having trouble getting a committee in your company to create a branding strategy for you? Do you find it a complicated task to come up with effective branding tactics? Does your existing branding campaign fall short of your expectations? Are you at a loss on what to do next?

Why not consider getting corporate branding services? There are many consultants and firms offering such services for companies like yours that are in a quandary on the right approach of their corporate branding predicament.

Corporate branding services can provide your company with a comprehensive strategy to get your company name across the market, with the right image that you desire it to project.

The strategy would include coming up with advertisements and promotions that are in line with the desired corporate image. Intangibles are important here. Concepts on goodwill, trust and reliability are driven hard at.

With corporate branding, one is more concerned on the image of the company, its name and culture. Unlike product branding wherein the company allows its products to have a life of its own, corporate branding would want to be known as a company offering quality products, excellent customer service and high-integrity business transactions.

With corporate branding, the company may also want to be known for their activities in answering the call of social responsibility on the local communities they are operating in – portraying responsible citizenship. Many branding consultant firms offer corporate branding services.

Health and Beauty

Overcoming Addiction

While overcoming addiction may not be easy, it is something that is necessary for leading a long, healthy, and fulfilling life. Whatever problems you are currently struggling with, there are certain things to consider before going ahead with whatever plan you may have in mind.

When you stop to think about everything is involved in this type of recovery, you will want to organize what you will be doing first. Overcoming denial is just the first step in shedding your addiction and all of the behaviors associated with it. Sometimes people will not admit to themselves that they have a problem.

Even if they do admit it, they won’t go a step farther and seek the treatment that is needed or they think that it will not help. With so many people who have benefited from support groups and rehab facilities, it is clear that there are plenty of options that actually work.

One general tip for addicts is to undergo formal treatment. Those who have problems with drugs or alcohol will want to seek help from a Connecticut detox treatment center that offers detox programs or support groups that require each person to go through a series of steps before they can finally complete it.

Taking this massive step in the right direction will end up putting you much closer to finally overcoming your addiction and becoming a much healthier person in general. Formal treatment is designed in most cases to provide an initial lift-off point for the person who is trying to beat their addiction.

Business Home

How the Patent Approval Process Works

Have you recently submitted your application for a patent? If so, is this your first time applying for a patent? If it is, you may be wondering exactly how everything will work. If that is the case, you will want to learn more about the patent approval process. Essentially, the patent approval process is time from when you submit your application until you hear a response back from the patent office. If you are like most hopeful patent holders, you may be wondering about what goes on during that time period.

Although different countries may have different ways of handling the patent approval process, everything is about the same. The process typically begins with your application being assigned to a patent expert or an employee of the patent office in question. There are patenting agencies such as InventHelp that could help you on this.

The job of the individual that is assigned to your application will include a number of important tasks. One of those tasks is taking the time to fully examine and understand your patent request. This also involves determining whether or not the information you provided was enough. If you did not provide enough detailed information, on your new invention, the patent approval process may end right there. That is why it is important that you go into great detail when describing your new invention.

In addition to making sure your patent application describes your invention, in great detail, you patent approval specialist, will also make sure that your patent is a unique idea; one that has not already been used. This part of the patent process involves the use of a patent record search. A patent record search will help to make sure that your patent is really one of a kind. In the event that your patent is similar to an existing patent, your request for a patent will likely be denied. That is why it is important, before the patent approval process even begins, to make sure that your idea is truly unique. You can easily do this online by performing your own patent search or by browsing through a collection of patent listings.

Although the overall patent process works the same, the time it takes to receive a response tends to vary. With a denial, you could receive a response in as little as a few months, but there are no guarantees. However, should your application for a patent be approved, the process will likely get started right away. Your patent, until it is granted, will likely be classified as a patent pending. That patent pending status is typically in place for about two or three months; the average amount of time that it takes for most patents to be issued.

Essentially, once you have submitted your application to the appropriate patent office, the patent approval process is really out of your hands; therefore, in all honestly, you just need to sit back and wait. Should your patent application be denied, there are steps that you can take to reapply; however, you are urged to use your best judgment because the patent approval process can get quite costly. If in doubt, about what to do next, you can always try and contact a representative in your patent office or you could seek professional assistance from a patent attorney or an agency like Invent Help.

Real Estate

What Blogging Platform Is Right For Real Estate Agents

I want to discuss some of your options for choosing a platform to run your blog on. Some will debate which is better to use or it does not really matter which one is better, it is the content that makes the blog a success. I do agree it is all about the content that the blog contains, however in real estate you want to take it a step further and see which one will be best to use for your overall business. Real estate professionals rely on several online tools to help boost their business, so choosing a blogging platform should be taken seriously from the start.

Most Common Blogging Platforms

  • Blogger.com
  • Typepad
  • WordPress.com
  • Standalone WordPress
  • Point2Agent

The first three on this list are free platforms that require no money upfront and you can begin blogging right away. Many real estate agents and brokers have gone this route for the simple fact it requires no setup or coding on your part. You simply go to the site, sign up for an account, choose your theme options and you are ready for your first post. Here is a MAJOR draw back to the free blogging platforms, your URL.

yourname.typepad.com
yourname.blogger.com
yourname.wordpress.com

People either link straight to the free blog or have it iframed (embedded in their website) so the viewer never leads the current site or knows the blog is hosted else where. The problem with linking straight to the blog from your current domain is anytime someone links to your blog, that link will not count towards your current real estate domain.

Anytime another site were to link to your blog, your free blog account will receive the credit and not your real estate website. But I thought backlinks were a good thing for my website? They are, but you want those back links going to your main domain name and not your blogger (typepad, free wordpress) account. It will be those accounts that will be receiving the credit and not your main site.

WordPress Standalone Platform

This the choice I recommend and prefer over any other platform available online today. The platform is also free, you can download it from wordpress.org. Standalone wordpress does require you to setup your database and upload the files to your web host. Once setup though, you can hire someone to configure a custom look tailored to your current site or do it yourself. There are some really newbie friendly WordPress real estate themes such as Agent Elite template which is very easy to use and to make beautiful real estate sites as you can see from this detailed review of Agent Elite websites.

Benefits Of Using WordPress Standalone

  • Search engines seem to love it (really they do)
  • Highly configurable
  • Plugins make adding new features very easy (just upload and activate the plugin)
  • Backend system makes adding/changing content a breeze
  • Themes can be downloaded
  • Large user support

In The End

You can choose whichever platform you like, I just wanted to go over some of the negative things regarding the several platforms that are out there. I suggest using the stand alone wordpress theme for your real estate blog, the ease of use and true power built into it makes it a winner in the eyes of many.

Health and Beauty

A Home STD Test Kit Offers Privacy and Peace of Mind!

If you discover that you’ve been exposed to an STD such as chlamydia, gonorrhea or even HIV, it’s imperative that you be tested to determine whether you’ve contracted the disease. You’ll be able to start important, even life-preserving treatment immediately if you have picked up the disease. If you find that you’re clean, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that you can continue intimate relationships without passing on an STD.

However, many teens and young adults don’t want to go through the expense, hassle and possible embarrassment of being tested for an STD at their doctor’s office or a clinic. Others would like to know the results of the test just as soon as possible. For these people, STD Test Kits to do at home testing provides the perfect solution to the problem.

Many companies offer in-home test kits at a relatively low price. The kits are simple to use; a patient provides either a blood sample or a swab of a bodily fluid. The kits provide detailed instructions since most people using them have never had to take their own blood sample or provide a swab of a bodily fluid. Most kits request some demographic information which doesn’t identify the individual taking the test. People who have reviewed the in-home kits report that their privacy was protected at all times.

A home STD test kit can be immediately ordered through an online retail website. If the kit is ordered, it generally arrives in the mailbox in a package that doesn’t identify what’s in it. Once the sample is taken, it’s put in a return mailer and sent back to the lab. Some companies claim they’re able to return results by phone or mail in just a few days; others take a couple of weeks. Many people say waiting for the results is the most difficult part of the entire process.

Worrying whether you’ve been exposed to an STD can be a traumatic experience. Having to go through the testing to determine your exposure can magnify the trauma, but a home STD test kit offers you needed anonymity and confidence in knowing you’re taking the right steps to prevent potential serious consequences. If you don’t want to go to your family doctor or the health department to get a test, it’s worth the money and time it takes to test yourself at home.

Health and Beauty

The Raw Food Vegan Diet

A raw food diet takes the vegan diet to a whole new level. It has shown to improve the general health in people who strictly adhere to the premise and eat only raw or warmed foods. The raw food vegan diet has shown to significantly improve vitamin and mineral intake in a person getting their entire caloric intake from raw foods. As a result of eating only raw vegan foods, a participant can expect significant weight loss while eating more food.

The biggest argument against beginning any kind of vegan diet is that is it too difficult to implement. With proper planning, research, and guidance from the experts, the adaptation of a normal SAD (Standard American Diet) is not that hard.

First, do the proper research to insure that you will be getting the proper nutrition with the drastic change in diet and make a plan. Clean out all the processed garbage and meat sourced foods from the kitchen. Put back all the ingredients needed to make this healthy lifestyle change. There are even vegan meats to make the transition easier and you can find The Best Vegan Meat on internet.

Some vegans choose to prepare a shopping list and then prep a certain amount of foods that are kept on hand and can be prepared in a very short time. Since the majority of foods are raw and organic when purchased, there is some significant prep time that must be figured into your schedule. Prepping the majority of you food for the week on one day, goes a long way to making a vegan diet easy to follow.

Home

Conduct Your Own Patent Search

It is natural for an inventor to presume that the brilliant brainwave which resulted in an innovative idea is ‘original’ in all respects and no body has thought of this before. It is also natural for the inventor to proceed to protect his idea by patenting it. But before acquiring a patent, the innovator or inventor has to find out whether his idea has been patented before. To do this he needs to do a patent search and for that there are patenting agencies like Invent Help that could help.

It is the responsibility of the United States Patent office to grant patents for any invention or innovation. Since there is no dearth of new inventors and no shortage of patent applications, the office is flooded with more than 350,000 new patent applications every year. To hasten the process of patenting and also to reduce their work load, the USPTO encourages inventors to do the patent search themselves. The USPTO lists all patents that have been granted since 1970 and a patent search can be done online by typing related keywords. This service is available free.

Before conducting any free online patent search, it is important to remember that the USPTO database contains some 33 million patent documents which are regularly updated every week. According to instructions given in the USPTO website, there are seven steps to do the patent search, which must be followed one after the other. Using the USPTO database, you can not however access patents issued prior to 1976, unless you start the search with the class and subclass alone. Therefore it is necessary for you to identify the class and subclass of your invention to do a search of pre-1976 patents also.

In case your online search does not yield any positive result, it could be a cost-effective and a wise decision to consult a reputed patent attorney or patent agent. These are skilled, experienced and knowledgeable professionals, who can help you with patent searches as well as advise you on other patent-related issues. Since they also double up as your legal counselor and spokesperson, they could even argue on your behalf and fight your case, in case the USPTO rejects your patent application. Instances are not rare when further design alterations and modifications are done on a design patent and re-submitted for their approval.

A rough and preliminary search done by a patent agency like Invent Help can reveal whether your invention idea has been patented even at a conceptual level as explained on Invent Help reviews. A patent search costs a few hundred dollars, of course the cost varies according to the nature of the invention. You also have the option to have a comprehensive patent search done, which will cost you around a thousand dollars.

It is very common that a patent will get rejected as the idea or invention, however novel or brilliant it may seem apparently, has been patented before. Thus it is wise to check whether the idea has been patented or not, before starting to develop a working model. Once you know that a patent has already been granted, you can further work on how to make your idea or invention different and unique, which will be treated as good as new.

Home

What Every Patent Needs

What are the four necessary parts of a good patent definition? These same four items are also necessary parts to file a patent, be of economic value and prevent your invention from being stolen. They are:

The invention must be novel

Being novel means that it can not be known by others or used by others before the inventor claims to have invented it. The invention can not be previously patented or publicly disclosed before the inventor’s claimed invention. In other words it can not be an infringement of someone else’s patented work. The patent must be applied for within 1 year after public disclosure or use. Professional patenting firms like InventHelp can help.

The invention must not be obvious

This means that the invention can not be a clear replacement for an original. The proposed invention can not be obvious to a person with average skill in the knowledge area of the invention. An example might be a red toy car. A blue toy car would be an obvious extension of a red toy car. However a toy car that transforms into a robot is not an obvious extension of a red toy car.

Very basic level language must be used

Supplied drawings must be clear and sufficient for a comprehensive understanding of the invention. A person with skill in the knowledge area must be able to understand the invention completely, in order for it to be patentable. If fear of having the invention stolen motivates the inventor to leave out essential elements of the invention, then it is not patentable. Trade secrets may be a better alternative in this case. However trade secrets can be very difficult to protect especially from disgruntled employees.

The patent claims must be clear and specific

The patent claims are the most difficult, but the most important part of a patent. They are the intellectual property that you are requesting the patent office to protect. These claims must be specific and clear, otherwise the patent office will not accept them. Even if the patent office does accept them, they must be defensible in court. Only an experienced patent lawyer or patent agency such as Invent Help would likely be able to foresee potential problems with claims. Many parts of the patent can be done by the inventor, but the claims are not one of them. This is the area where a patent lawyer can really be worth the cost.

Health and Beauty

Tips for Choosing the Best Weight Loss Supplements

With so many weight loss products in the market it’s really hard to choose the right supplement that works. The following tips will help you choose the best and effective weight loss supplements.

Always go for the natural (semi-processed) weight loss supplements, such as the Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic. Such supplements don’t have side effects as compared to chemically synthesized supplements. They help you lose weight in the safest way possible as you can see from Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic reviews.

Always go for publicly approved weight loss supplements. Before they get approved they are clinically tested to check if they are safe for human use and if they are at all effective. To confirm approved weight loss supplements check if they have an FDA (Food Drugs and Administration) approval.

Always check for the side effects associated with a particular weight loss supplement. This will help you to avoid using supplements that will make your health condition worse.

Get weight loss supplements that contain green tea extracts, Vitamin C and alpha acid. This is because these substances are proven to eliminate body fat by increasing the body’s metabolic rate.

Consult your doctor to help you choose a weight loss supplement. Doctors are the right people to help you choose a supplement since they know the safe products in the market and what can work for you since they have your medical history.

Most of all identify your weaknesses and get the best weight loss supplement for you. Take for example individuals who are overweight due to emotional eating. These people eat because they are emotionally distressed but not because they are hungry. The best supplement for such a person would be an Appetite Suppressant as compared to a Fat Burner. This would have solved their main problem.