Utility patent application: may be filed by anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.
It is no surprise that utility patents are substantially harder to obtain than design patents. What may be eye-opening is that the probability of obtaining a utility patent is a function of several factors.
The Poor Man's Patent Is Obsolete Because of the change from a first-to-invent system to a first-to-file system, even the reasoning behind a poor man's patent is now obsolete. Being the first to invent will no longer save you is someone else filed first.
Utility patent application: may be filed by anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.
An immediate improvement filed by Seth Wheeler, which was granted on December 22, 1891, as patent number US465588A. In Wheeler's improved patent for toilet paper he described the idea of perforated toilet paper on a roll.