Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Mechanic
bondo, from my experience with a 6 year pursuit of a patent, if you filed your application before the others then yours will be the first issued, assuming it passes the test for "novelty". It's a difficult process to say the least and another threshold to a granted patent is "not obvious to someone educated in the art". Either of those two criteria can really give you headaches in actually having a patent granted.
The applications are processed according to filing date, so if you are the first with an original idea, you could proceed to production using Patent Pending until you actually have a patent number assigned.
regards
Mech
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Mech you have my respect for having gone though the process. It is the "obviousness" issue I am dealing with. The last Utility patent I filed was granted in a streamline fashion which took three years. It was granted in 1999.
A lot has changed, for the worse in the USPTO since then. From what I have read on the Internet from others who are trying to get patents, they too are running into many hurdles, mainly negative Office Actions. We can hope the new "Patent Reform" bill signed into law two weeks ago will be adventagoeus to us all.
Bondo