How to get a patent or trademark

Dear Professor Bruce: I just developed a new product and I am concerned about people making knock-offs or copying my product. How do I get a patent or trademark for my brand/product? How much does it cost? First, you want to see if your product is eligible for a basic "utility" patent. A utility patent protects the functional aspects of your product. An "intellectual property" attorney can perform a search and give you advice on what aspects of your product, if any, may be worthy of a patent, so you can protect your unique idea or invention. An intellectual property attorney specializes in patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. You then decide whether you want to incur the expense of filing an application for a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This "utility" patent would cover the aspects of how your product works, and is arguably the most powerful tool available to prevent other people from copying your product.According to Doug Siegel and Jason Budd, Intellectual Property attorneys with Price, Heneveld, Cooper, Dewitt & Litton, "The appearance of your product may be protected by a design patent and/or a trademark in the way your product looks. A design patent can be applied as long as functionality of the product does not require the product to look a certain way. Trademark protection is available once consumers come to understand that you are the only source for your product and, again, if the look of your product is not dictated by function"For example, after you sell your product for a period of time, consumers may associate the unique shape of your product with your company. At that point, the appearance of your product would be your trademark and you could prevent other companies from selling products that look similar enough to confuse consumers. A real life example is the look of a bottle, like the Coca-Cola bottle. The shape of the bottle tells us instantly that the bottle comes from one company -- we do not need to read the word "Coca-Cola" on the bottle. How the bottle looks is a trademark. In other words, think of the shape of your product as another way to "brand" your product, just like a word trademark ("Nike") or a symbol trademark (the Nike swoosh). Costs for preparing a patent or trademark application vary depending on the complexity of product, process, or trademark. For further information, please visit www.priceheneveld.com.Bruce Freeman, The Small Business Professor, is president of ProLine Communications, a marketing and public relations firm in Livingston, NJ and co-author of Birthing the Elephant (Ten Speed Press). E-mail questions to Bruce(at)SmallBusinessProf.com.