Georgia PATENTS & North Carolina Bar Foundation Partnership
This lesson is a guide published by Georgia PATENTS.
Read the guideWhat you'll get
How a North Carolina inventor who cannot afford a patent attorney gets matched with a volunteer one: Georgia PATENTS screens the applicant, then the North Carolina Bar Foundation finds a practitioner, and you still pay an administrative fee and the USPTO's filing fees. Georgia PATENTS' qualifications page sets a household income limit, requires a working prototype or a complete description, rules out an invention made public more than eight months ago, and asks for patent training and a prior-art search before intake; the USPTO's Patent Pro Bono Program page explains the national network this belongs to.
Do this week
Read the Georgia PATENTS qualifications page, check your household income and invention against each requirement, and write down what you are missing, such as the patent training certificate or a prior-art search with at least three references.