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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