What is a patent?

A patent is a type of intellectual property granted to an inventor to help protect their invention from being made or sold by competitors.

Under U. S. patent law, a patent doesn’t give an inventor the right to make or sell an invention. Instead, it grants the inventor the right to exclude others from “making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention” in the United States. It also gives the inventor the right to prevent others from importing the invention into the country that issued the patent.

Thus, a patent owner has the exclusive right to control who creates, sells, and benefits from the invention during the life of the patent in the country or countries in which they have obtained a patent.

In the United States, the agency responsible for issuing patents is the Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).