Patent Self-Check: Make Sure Your Innovations Are Protected from IP Grave Robbers

If you have patents, patent applications, or new innovations that may need patent protection, this beginning-of-year self-check could save you from losing valuable rights. Today, I’m walking you through how to audit your patents.

First: Are your maintenance fees current?

Utility patents require maintenance fees at 3.5 years, 7.5 years, and 11.5 years after grant.

If you don’t pay them, your patent expires and enters the public domain. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back.

Check the status of all your granted patents on the USPTO website. Set calendar reminders for upcoming fees.

Second: Are your pending applications being tracked?

If you have patent applications in process, there are critical deadlines you cannot miss: office Action responses, continuation deadlines, foreign filing deadlines, and more.

Missing a deadline can kill your application.

If you’re working with a patent attorney, verify they’re tracking all deadlines. Send an email asking for a status update.

Third: Have you created new inventions worth protecting?

Think about what your business developed in the past year. New products, new processes, new software algorithms, new designs.

Critical timing issue: You have 12 months from the first public disclosure to file a U.S. patent application. After that, you lose your U.S. patent rights forever.

For a complete IP audit checklist, containing more patent audit items, as well as trademark, copyright, and trade secret audit items, click the button below.