Related Links:  Patents for Humanity (an awards process for inventors who invent to help humanity).

Ever wonder why IBM and Microsoft spends millions of dollars obtaining thousands of patents each year? The answer is simple. Patents are an indispensable part of any business. This is even more true for small businesses and individual inventors where good patent protection is often the only way that such inventors can license and make money off their invention. It is also important to know about patents because any product development needs to take into consideration the patent landscape before money is invested in such product development.

But patents are not the only form of intellectual property propection. In some instances, you may be better off keeping your invention a trade secret. A situation might be where it is very easy to design around the claims or your invention but very difficult for one to reverse engineer say a complex process of doing things. 

You may want to consider other forms of intellectual property in addition to obtaining a patent.

This section of Ypatent covers several common types of other forms of intellectual property; copyright, trademarks & trade secrets. 

Other Agencies not covered in other parts of Website

United States International Trade Commission