A U.S. patent gives you, the inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. A plant patent gives you additional rights on the “parts” of plants (e.g., a plant patent on an apple variety would include rights on the apples from the plant variety).
What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on your patent, you may initiate legal action. U.S. patents are effective only within the U.S. and its territories and possessions.
If you’re new to the process of protecting your rights to your invention by applying for a patent, you’re in the right place.
Patent essentials
Applying for Patents
The Patent Public Search tool is a web-based patent search application. Select Basic search to look for patents by keywords or common fields, or Select Advanced search to use full query options as well as to further filter a patent search by database or organize documents through tagging.