Patents FAQs
Straight answers on working with us, litigation, trademarks, patents, copyright, business formation, and more. Search, filter by topic, or ask your own question below.
They guard different things. A patent protects an invention—how something works or is made. A trademark protects brand identifiers like names and logos. A copyright protects original creative work, including software code, writing, and design. A single product often needs more than one: the device is patented, its name is trademarked, its code is copyrighted. We help you figure out which forms of protection actually fit what you've built—and which you can skip.
Patents
Utility patents commonly take a few years from filing to issuance, depending on the technology and the USPTO's backlog in that area. A provisional application is a useful lever: it locks in an early filing date and buys you twelve months to file the full application. Examination is a back-and-forth with an examiner, and how that goes shapes the timeline as much as the queue does.
Patents
Sometimes—and how you frame it is everything. Software inventions can be patentable when claimed as a concrete technical improvement rather than an abstract idea, a line drawn by Section 101 case law and USPTO guidance that keeps moving. Two applications describing the same system can land on opposite sides of that line based purely on drafting. That's the part where experienced patent counsel earns its keep.
Patents