Find a Patents Lawyer

Patent law protects inventors by granting them exclusive rights to make, use, and sell their invention for a specified period of time. When applying for a patent, you'll want to be aware of not only the basic points of patent law but the application process itself and how to protect your invention(s) along the way. A Basic Overview of Patent Law U.S. patent laws were established by Congress in order to protect the discoveries of inventors. For an invention to receive a patent, it must be considered novel, useful, and not of an obvious nature. Four general types of inventions qualify for such "utility" patents. These include machines, human made products, compositions of matter, and processing methods. Specific additions have been made to the Patent Act to help account for technology and our ever-changing concept of what designates a human made product. These additions also provide for design and plant patents. Continued... By Lindsay Rech