4.1 PATENTS
Patents encourage innovation by protecting inventions that are an advancement over existing technology and methods. In the United States, there are three major classes of patents:
- Utility patents, which protect any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement on these.
- Design patents, which protect original and ornamental designs for manufactured products.
- Plant patents, which protect new varieties of asexually reproduced plants.
Our book focuses on the utility patent, which is the most commonly issued patent and is of particular importance to scientists and engineers. Famous patented inventions include hybrid automobile technologies, the allergy medicine Claritin®, and the light bulb, which was patented by two Canadian inventors who sold their rights to Thomas Edison. While software is occasionally patentable, it more commonly falls under copyright law (see Section 8.2). Patents are granted to the inventor and allow the inventor (or whomever the inventor assigns rights) to exclude others from making, selling, using, or importing the patented invention. Utility and plant patents last for 20 years from the date they are applied for; design patents last 14 years from the date they are issued.
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