Exclusions from Patent Protection

Under federal law there are a number of exclusions from patent protection, including the following:

  • Inventions useful solely in the use of special nuclear material or atomic energy for atomic weapons

  • Laws of nature (for example, the law of gravity or pure mathematical formulae)

  • Products of nature, such as naturally occurring plants (because inventions such as genetically altered mice and oysters are made by humans rather than naturally occurring products, they are patentable)

  • Printed matter

  • Abstract ideas or suggestions

For 200 years, the conventional wisdom has been that business methods were not patentable. In 1998, the Federal Circuit Court issued an opinion allowing a patent for a business method, holding that ...

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