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Key Facts
- Federal level: U.S. patents fall into three broad types: utility, design, and plant patents.
- Federal level: Utility patents concern qualifying functional inventions, including processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of matter, and improvements.
- Federal level: Design patents concern new, original, ornamental designs for articles of manufacture rather than how an article works.
- Federal level: Plant patents concern qualifying distinct and new plant varieties that are invented or discovered and asexually reproduced.
- Federal level: An example that fits a patent category is not automatically patentable; other statutory requirements still apply.
Patent examples are most useful when they show what each patent type protects. A functional mechanism, the ornamental appearance of a manufactured article, and a qualifying new plant variety can all involve patents, but they belong to different legal categories.
The examples below are illustrations, not conclusions that a particular invention would receive a patent. Patentability depends on the claims, prior art, disclosure, filing record, and all applicable statutory requirements.
Utility patent examples focus on function
Section 101 of Title 35 identifies processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of matter, and improvements as potentially patentable subject matter. These categories cover how something works, what it is made from, or how a result is produced.
- Machine: a new mechanical steering assembly for a sled.
- Process: a sequence of industrial steps that reduces waste during fabrication.
- Manufacture: a tool with a new arrangement of interacting components.
- Composition of matter: a new chemical formulation with a defined structure.
- Improvement: a new control mechanism added to an existing type of device.
These are category examples only. A utility claim must also satisfy requirements such as usefulness, novelty, nonobviousness, and adequate written disclosure.
A real utility example: the steerable sled
The USPTO’s historical account of Samuel Leeds Allen describes his work on steerable sleds and the development that became associated with the Flexible Flyer. The example illustrates how a familiar product can contain patentable functional engineering: the relevant subject is not the broad idea of a sled, but a described arrangement for steering and construction.
A modern product can likewise contain several potentially distinct inventions. A single appliance might include a mechanical assembly, a control process, and a material composition, each evaluated through its own claims.
Design patent examples focus on ornamental appearance
Under 35 U.S.C. § 171, a design patent may cover a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture. The protected subject is the appearance shown in the design patent’s drawings, not the article’s functional principle.
- the ornamental shape and surface treatment of a lamp housing
- the visual configuration of a chair back
- an ornamental pattern applied to manufactured packaging
- the appearance of an icon displayed on a manufactured device
A product can involve both utility and design patents. One patent may concern a device’s working mechanism, while another concerns an ornamental exterior, but each must independently meet its governing requirements.
Plant patent examples concern asexually reproduced varieties
Section 161 permits patents for qualifying distinct and new plant varieties that a person invents or discovers and asexually reproduces. The statute excludes tuber-propagated plants and plants found in an uncultivated state.
Illustrative subjects can include a new rose reproduced by cuttings, a fruit-tree variety propagated by grafting, or another qualifying cultivated variety reproduced without seeds. Merely finding an uncultivated wild plant does not fit the statutory category.
One product can involve several forms of protection
Consider a simplified hypothetical garden tool. A new internal ratchet may be the subject of utility claims, the tool’s ornamental outer shape may be the subject of a design application, and its brand name may function as a trademark. Artwork in its instruction manual may involve copyright.
Those protections are not interchangeable. The site’s broader patent definition and rights overview explains why a patent’s claims, term, and territorial scope matter beyond the category label.
What patent examples do not prove
Similarity to a patented product does not establish infringement, and similarity to a category example does not establish patentability. Patent claims define legal boundaries, while examination considers prior art and the statutory requirements.
Examples also should not be read as permission to use an invention. A patent supplies a right to exclude within its scope; it does not automatically clear other patents, regulations, contracts, or legal restrictions.
