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ARTICLE · 19 SEPTEMBER 2012

Patent 101: What Is Patentable?

Brinks Gilson & Lione
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One question innovators frequently ask is "What is a patentable invention?" This is an important question because patents confer legal rights that enable the patent owner to prevent others from making, using, selling, and offering for sale patented inventions.

United StatesIntellectual Property
Ryan Marshall
Ryan Marshall
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One question innovators frequently ask is "What is a patentable invention?" This is an important question because patents confer legal rights that enable the patent owner to prevent others from making, using, selling, and offering for sale patented inventions. Thus, patents can be used to prevent competitors from copying a new or improved product or process. This article provides a brief summary of the topic of patent eligibility.

The first patent law enacted in 1793 and authored by Thomas Jefferson, described patentable subject matter as "any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new or useful improvement [thereof]." This same broad language remains embedded in the law today, although in 1952, Congress replaced the word "art" with "process" but otherwise left Jefferson's language unchanged.

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