Essentially, a patent protects an invention. Inventions include any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement on any of the above. The word process primarily includes industrial or technical processes or methods. The term "composition of matter" relates to chemical compositions and may include mixtures of ingredients as well as new chemical compounds. This definition includes practically everything which is made by man and the processes for making the products.
However, the courts have ruled that the laws of nature, physical phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable. A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. Patent law also specifies that the subject matter must be "useful." The term "useful" in this connection refers to the condition that the subject matter has a useful purpose and also includes operativeness, that is, a machine which will not operate to perform the intended purpose would not be called useful, and therefore would not be granted a patent. A complete description of the actual machine or other subject matter for which a patent is sought is required.
In the United States, a patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. United States patent grants are effective only within the United States, US territories, and US possessions. A patent confers "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" the invention in the United States or "importing" the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention.
