Patents establish ownership of an invention by identifying the inventor and providing a detailed description of the invention. A patent is a government document that is uniquely identified by a patent number. However, a single invention may have numerous patents and several patent numbers along with a separate set of identification numbers for other patent-related documents.
Patents
United States patents were authorized in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution as a means of encouraging inventions by establishing clear-cut ownership and protecting inventors from having their ideas and inventions stolen. The U.S. Patent Office issues patents mostly for inventions, which can include machines, electronics and even living items like new plant varieties. Patents are also issued for unique designs for a particular invention. The U.S. Patent Office issued 244,341 patents in 2010, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
U.S. Patent Numbers
The Patent Office assigns a unique patent number to each patent. For example, Patent 1,049,667 was granted to William Burton in 1913 for inventing a new process to manufacture gasoline. Thomas Edison received patents for more than 200 inventions, including Patent 91,527 for the printing telegraph, Patent 203,016 for the speaking telephone and Patent 214,636 for electric lights.
Foreign Patent Numbers
A patent provides protection only in the country in which it is issued. Many inventors file for patents in multiple countries. For this reason, a single invention may have many different patent numbers for patents issued in numerous countries. The World Intellectual Property Organization maintains a database of more than 70 million patents and patent applications from dozens of countries around the world.
Patent Appllications
The Patent Office also assigns a unique identification to individual patent applications. This number is distinct from the patent number should the Patent Office approve the application and issue a final patent. For example, the Burton Patent 1,049,667 for gasoline manufacture was assigned a patent application number of 707,424.
