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I have contacted a manufacturer in China who produced this item.

I have searched on Google patents and there aren't any patent on it. On Amazon nobody is selling this item.

Can I patent this item so that I will be the only one who can sell this on Amazon? I want to protect me from others who will find this product and they will start selling on Amazon too. If I patent this item I could send a "Cease and Desist" letter to new potential sellers?

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  • Whether it's legally possible or not, what you're planning to do is fundamentally unethical, so shame on you for even thinking of abusing the patent system that way. Remember that the U.S. Constitution establishes the reason for the existence of the patent system: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. How does what you're trying to pull of promote the progress of anything?
    – Kuba hasn't forgotten Monica
    Mar 31, 2016 at 19:31
  • Talk to an IP lawyer to see if there are other ways to protect your product, e.g. through copyright and/or trademarks and/or design patents (as opposed to utility patents).
    – Kuba hasn't forgotten Monica
    Mar 31, 2016 at 19:34

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Since the product is probably being offered for sale to the public, you probably can't patent it.

You can patent the product if all of the following conditions hold:

1. you are the inventor

According to 35 U.S. Code § 101 's preamble:

Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.

2. It hasn't been disclosed before

35 U.S. Code § 101

(a) A person shall be entitled to a patent unless—

(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; or

(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.

3. it is not obvious

35 U.S. Code § 103

A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.

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