Patent Resources: Home

Patents: A Basic Description

A patent is a legal document that provides the patent holder with legal protection, for a limited time, to the subject matter described in the patent. The patent holder is allowed to exclude others from making, selling, using, or importing anything  that is within the scope of protection granted by the patent. Patents are issued by the Patent Office of a country -- in the United States, this is the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Patents can be granted to either a firm or an individual, and are enforced by the patent holder, not the Patent Office.

Patents can be one of three types: utility patents, design patents or plant patents.

Utility Patents normally fall into one of four classes:

• Machine -- a device or apparatus created by someone for the performance of a task 
• Process -- a process created by someone  
• Manufacture -- a fabricated or manufactured product 
• The Composition of Matter -- a chemical mixture or compound created by someone 

Design patents cover a single ornamental design in each application. The ornamental design may be:

• embodied in an entire article, OR
• only a portion of an article, OR
• may be ornamentation applied to an article.

(If a design patent is for just surface ornamentation, the design patent application must show the design applied to an article in the drawings, and the article with the design applied must be shown in broken lines, as it is not itself a part of the claimed design.)

A plant patent is granted to an individual or firm who has invented -- or discovered and asexually reproduced -- a distinct and new variety of plant.

What makes something "patentable"?

• Usefulness/Utility: The invention, as claimed, must be both functional and useful. A machine must work according to the intended purpose, and a chemical must show some sort of activity or have some use.
• Novelty: The invention must be unique, and different from anything known previously; it must not have been described in a prior publication, nor can it have been publicly sold or used.
• Ingenuity/Non-obviousness: The invention must be a development or improvement not obvious beforehand to users of an average skill level in the technological area involved in the invention.

Both "Novelty" and "Ingenuity" are judged against what is publicly known before the invention, as shown by earlier patents and other publications. This is called "prior art", and is cited in the patent to justify its unique status.