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Patents and Inventions
Creative ideas are a result of our minds hard at work and inventions are the result of these creative ideas. Patents are the part of the intellectual property law that protects inventions. A national government office will grant a patent after review of the application, which will describe what your product or service is and what it will do.
Three Main Types of Patents
- Utility patents offer protection for machines, product, process, and composition of matter or any improvements to these. Examples where a utility patent may be used are computer hardware, fiber optics, medications
- Design patents protect against the unauthorized use of ornamental design, shape, configuration or improvement of an invention. Examples of design patent include the design of Coca-Cola bottles, designer eyeglass frames, athletic shoe, Star Wars character.
- Plant patent protects asexually reproduced plant varieties that are discovered or invented such as Silver Queen corn, Hybrid tea roses, Better Boy tomatoes.
What You Cannot Patent
- Laws of nature (gravity, wind)
- Physical phenomena (water, sand)
- Abstract ideas (a philosophy, mathematics)
- Literary, musical, dramatic and artistic works (These can be copyright protected.)
What You Can Patent
- Inventions that are new or novel
- Inventions sufficiently different and nonobvious - even if you've developed a product that has never been made before, if it's too similar to something else, it cannot be patented.
- Inventions that are useful, will perform both its declared purpose and a practical purpose