MAIN Home Legal Guide Intellectual Property Law Inventions & Patents

When inventors invent something, they usually want to protect it from being copied and reused without their permission, and so to protect their invention they obtain a patent.

The exact rules and regulations of patents differ from country to country, although there are some international agreements that attempt to regularize the patent process. In some countries, for instance, intellectual property such as business models cannot be patented, while in other countries they can be.

How to obtain a patent

Generally speaking, the granting of a patent must fulfill three criteria.

• The invention must be new.
• The invention must be inventive, or what is called "non-obvious" in the United States.
• And lastly, the invention must be useful or applicable in some way.

If an invention meets all these standards, it will generally receive a patent and all the legal protection that a patent provides. In the US, this generally entails the submission of drawings by the inventor that must show every feature of the invention; as well as a declaration, or "inventors oath" swearing them to be the original and first inventor of the subject matter of the patent application.

In most countries, the legal protection that a patent provides will last for 20 years, whereupon the invention becomes part of the public domain. A patent is in many ways treated legally like a piece of property. Patents can be bought and sold, they can be mortgaged, licensed, given away or even abandoned.

If a person or company infringes on a patent in some way, the patent holder can take the perpetrator to court and can often win a monetary settlement based on how grievous the infringement was. It is in this way that patents are typically enforced by the courts.

Patent law controversies

Patent law is certainly necessary, but in some cases also has its share of criticism. Many people point out, for instance, that pharmaceutical patents allow pharmaceutical companies to block the production of generic drugs and keep drug prices artificially high, which can prevent the people who most need those drugs from getting them.

In some particularly desperate third world countries for instance, patent laws have been ignored entirely and some drugs, like HIV treatments, are produced illegally. This of course violates patent laws, but raises some interesting questions as to which kinds of inventions should be granted patents, especially when people's health or lives are endangered by the legal protections that are afforded big corporations under current patent law.

More about inventions & patent law around the Web:

United States Patent and Trademark Office - The offiical site offering how-to guides for filing inventions, copyrights and trademarks, facts and inventions on patent law, related searchable databases, resources & glossary.

World Intellectual Property Organization - International clearinghouse of facts and information on copyright law and trademarks, industrial design, with a searchable database of international patents, related glossary, Webcasts.

IPWatchdogs - Patent and Invention Help - An extensive online course with facts, information and guides to developing an invention, the do's and don'ts of patent applications, how to perform a patent search, detailed discussions on submission drawings, typical costs, and related case studies.

Inventors - About.com guide with complete information for beginnners on inventions and patent law, sample forms and non-disclosure contracts, invention history and fun facts, timelines.

also see -> Business Law & Intellectual Property

The information provided on these pages is intended as reference
only and does not constitute professional legal advice.