If money is not an issue.

If you have the money for patents and trademarks, then protection is easy. Find yourself a patent attorney, and have him prepare a patent application for your invention. Make sure that you select a reputable lawyer, as your rights rest in the validity of your patent. The claims that are made in the patent are especially important and must be worded in such a way as to be all inclusive. This takes practice and skill, and a good patent lawyer should be able to provide you maximum return on your investmestment.

If money could be a problem.

Without much money there is not much place to turn. Patents can be expensive to have a patent attorney prepare. Pursuing the patent once obtained can be even more difficult if you're short on cash, but there is hope. Patents can be prepared by the inventor, and I feel should be. The inventor has an intimate knowledge of the product/invention, and is the best able to articulate it properly to the world. Another boon is the fact that an inventor filing a patent gets some special help from the US Patent office. They are required to help you as much as they can with the preparation of your patent, so that you can patent it yourself.

Of course, consider yourself authorized!. Filing a patent yourself is much cheaper than filing through a lawyer, and it's a worthwhile experience. I find that many inventors are already quite analytical and precise in thier word and manner. This makes them a likely candidate to do battle as not weekend warriors, but lawyers. Yes the average inventor is completely able to compentently execute an enforcable patent and there have been many books published on this subject.

So then, regardless of how you protect it, action must be taken to reduct the invention to practice even while an invention is in the status of "Patent Pending" or in some cases even after the patent has been issued.

Utility Patent

This is the most common form of patent. The utility patent is strictly for process, apperatus, or novel innovation, that is considered to be unobvious. This patent does not protect the wat something looks, it protects what something does, or rather how it does it. This would be the type of patent you would use to protect a computer algorithm, or a bread machine that made muffins

Design Patent

This type of patent is specifically designed to protect just that, the design. The way your product looks is the novel part of this patent. You could for instance patent a bread machine, that looked like the head of a mouse with this patent. The bread machine wouldn't be in the patent because, there are already patents on bread machines. But the bread machine shaped like the head of a mouse, now that's novel! You could pursue a design patent for your mouse head bread machine.

Plant Patent

This type of patent protects any new species that you have fostered up in your vat. If you had bred a new variation of a rose for instance, this could be protected with a plant patent. This patent is specifially for designed organic material, such as plants.

If you have read the above, and you're still wondering what kind of patent is for you, then maybe you should visit the USPTO web site. They have a large help section that can stear you in the right direction.

Make sure to note that the various types of patents come with different filing fees. So don't be trying to get a bargain on your patent by attempting to file with another type of patent, you won't end up getting the protection that you deserve. Make sure of the type of patent that would best protect your invention, and go with it.