Patent Basics
A patent gives an inventor the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited time. This chapter explains what a patent is, the requirement that an invention be new, useful, and non-obvious, the difference between product and process patents, and why ideas alone cannot be patented.
What a Patent Is
A patent is a document issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office that gives an inventor the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing the invention for a limited period. It does not grant a positive right to use the invention, but rather the power to stop others from doing so without permission. In exchange, the inventor must publicly disclose how the invention works, so that knowledge becomes available to society once the patent expires.
What Can Be Patented
The Patent Act allows anyone who invents or discovers a new, non-obvious, and useful machine, manufacture, process, or composition of matter, or an improvement of one, to obtain a patent. These fall into two categories: products and processes. Products are physical things such as machines, manufactured articles, or chemical compositions, while processes are methods or means of doing something, whether a wholly new action or a new way of doing an old one. The invention must meet all three tests of novelty, usefulness, and non-obviousness.
You Cannot Patent Ideas
Not everything that fits the four categories can be patented. The key limit is the difference between an abstract idea and a specific, practical application of it. Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas themselves are not patentable, because they are the basic tools of knowledge that must stay open to all. A patent protects a concrete invention that applies such principles to a useful end, not the underlying principle. Recent court rulings have narrowed the patentability of purely abstract methods.
