The most common patent is a utility patent, which covers a new product or process. A design patent covers ornamental characteristics of a product, and a plant patent covers newly-developed hybrids.
There are two basic types of utilty patents: the non-provisional and the provisional application. Both types of patent applications are held in confidence by the USPTO, they will not show your application to anyone. Design patents are always non-provisional applications.
In US patent practice, the terms you're using, "full patent" and "mechanical patent," don't have any meaning. The United States Patent and Trademark Office grants three types of non-provisional patents: design patents, plant patents, and utility patents. They protect different things; one doesn't "override" the other.
99,220, including utility patents, plant patents, design patents, and reissues.
The USPTO granted a total of 247,727 patents from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2011, including Reissue Patents, Plant Patents, Design Patents, and Utility Patents.
The US Patent Office issued 99,200 total patents from 1 January 1990 to 31 December 1990, including 9 reissue patents, 6 plant patents, 194 design patents, and 98,991 utility patents.
Copyright is a type of intellectual property. Other types are trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.
43 patents
Charles Kettering had 104 patents.
The website Free Patents Online provides descriptions of patents, with downloadable PDFs of their schematics. Alternatively, the website Patents provides text descriptions but no images.
As of 2010, General Electric (GE) has 1,222 patents. Aside from this, they have filed 37, 268 patents in the US.
1093 patents for inventions
No; Twitter notably has not filed for any patents.