Patents
Protect inventions
- Novelty
- Non-obviousness
- Statutory subject matter
- Composition of Matter
- Article of Manufacture
- Machine
- Process
Notes:
Patents protect inventions.
Well, what is an invention?
The patent laws define an invention as a Novel, Non-obvious machine, manufacture, process or composition of matter.
What is Novelty? Novelty means that no one elseÆs invention has ALL the same stuff that your invention has.
Non-obviousness is a little trickier. If we imagine the inventor sitting in her lab, with all the other previously made inventions in her field (called prior art) sitting in front of her, we say her invention is non-obvious if it has AT LEAST ONE thing that is not in all that prior art.