{"id":176,"date":"2008-06-18T22:07:33","date_gmt":"2008-06-18T20:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/wordpress\/supplement-ad-claims-of-the-month-patented-patent-pending\/"},"modified":"2015-02-12T21:06:49","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T02:06:49","slug":"supplement-ad-claims-of-the-month-patented-patent-pending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/supplement-ad-claims-of-the-month-patented-patent-pending\/","title":{"rendered":"Supplement Ad Claims of the Month: &#8220;Patented&#8221; &amp; &#8220;Patent Pending&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I see these terms used in a lot of dietary supplement ads, especially &#8220;patent pending.&#8221;\u00a0 The implicit assumption is &#8211; if\u00a0a patent has been applied for\u00a0or granted &#8211; it must be effective.<\/p>\n<p>Not so.\u00a0 A patent is simply a legally-recognized grant of property rights over an invention,\u00a0 formula, or design.\u00a0 According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/patents-getting-started\/general-information-concerning-patents\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a patent represents<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the United States or importing the invention into the United States.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more-->There are only really two major criteria that must be met to be eligible for a patent:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;it must be new as defined in the patent law&#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>it must be &#8220;useful&#8221; &#8211; in the sense that the invention is intended to serve a useful purpose.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In other words, a patent is simply a legal instrument the patent holder(s)\u00a0can use to keep others from marketing &#8220;copycat&#8221; versions of his\/her\/their work for a specified period of time (typically 20 years).<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s all there really is to it.\u00a0 The patent holder is not required to prove that their process or product actually works to obtain a patent.\u00a0 Likewise, all &#8220;patent pending&#8221; means is that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/help\/patent-help\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a patent application is on file with the USPTO<\/a>.\u00a0 It isn&#8217;t a guarantee that a patent will even be awarded!<\/p>\n<p>Often, when I see one of these terms in an ad, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/patft\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I&#8217;ll amble on over to the USPTO and do a search<\/a>.\u00a0 This\u00a0can be a very interesting experience&#8230;I&#8217;ve found all sorts of easily disproved claims in patents, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/bodybuilding\/Kre-Alkalyn.html\" target=\"_blank\">such as the one discussed in my Kre-Alkalyn review<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Just goes to show you that claims don&#8217;t need to be based on evidence to obtain a patent.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you see the words &#8220;patented&#8221; or &#8220;patent pending&#8221; &#8211; you&#8217;d be wise to let your eyes just slide over them: they mean exactly nothing when it comes to proving that a product actually works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I see these terms used in a lot of dietary supplement ads, especially &#8220;patent pending.&#8221;\u00a0 The implicit assumption is &#8211; if\u00a0a patent has been applied for\u00a0or granted &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,27,28],"tags":[1247,1249,1573,1591],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8121,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/8121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}