14 Articles Found In Awards

This article describes various types of military medals that were received from World War II to the present.

The 64th annual Golden Globe Awards were held on January 15th. The Golden Globe Awards honor the year's top films and TV shows, and are presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Many businesses make more than a decent living helping inventors just like you make money from their inventions. From filing a patent to licensing and marketing your invention, someone is around every corner offering assistance.

You hear them on late night television, newspapers and magazines, even the radio and the internet. The ad goes something like this, "Hey inventor, call our toll free number and we'll help you protect your idea and get rich quick".

So you've done your homework (or are planning on being diligent about it at least). And you've decided to definitely forge ahead and gain a patent on your invention. So now what? Well, first of all, be warned that patenting your invention will cost you several thousand dollars. The fee varies widely; you will ultimately need to receive an estimate from the professional you choose.

So you've invented the next big thing (or at least something that may solve a problem for a select group of people)? Now what?

You can get a reasonable patent search for a few hundred dollars. An in-depth comprehensive search will cost more (around a $1,000). But before you spend any money at all applying for a patent, reducing your invention to practice, or building an expensive prototype, you can start searching around all on your own.

What can be protected? Determining what qualifies as a patentable invention is a highly difficult and complicated task. Patent laws state that "Anything under the sun that was invented by man qualifies as patentable". Simple enough, but if you notice, there are hundreds of pages full of exceptions and details on the idea of patentability following this phrase. Scores of appeals and patent court cases have arisen due to questions regarding patentability because it still hasn't, and probably never will be entirely pinned down.

Hopefully you realize that before you do much of anything, you need to look at the marketability of your invention. Remember, you don't want to do anything until you have a good feel for whether or not you can actually make some money from your invention. Of course, you can't ever determine with 100% accuracy if you will make money or how much, but you can gain an idea by looking at other products available in the marketplace.

Please note that there is more to gaining a patent than just filing an application and waiting. It is possible that this is all you will have to do, but unlikely. Once a patent application is sent in to the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), it will be assigned to a patent examiner.