Patents for Entrepreneurs and Innovators
What are Patents?
Patents are a type of government-issued intellectual property that grant patent owners the legal right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the claimed invention. In the United States, patent rights are identified in the Constitution (Article I Section 8) and have been granted since 1790. In effect, patents give their owners a limited-time monopoly on inventors' ideas in exchange for disclosing the technology to the world in a way that will allow others to use the ideas (within the strictures of the limited monopoly). Because patents involve public disclosure, anything that you want to be a trade secret cannot be patented.
Types of Patents and Patent-Like Rights
Additional Resources
- U.S.P.T.O. Patent Basics - a government site with lots of patent information
- WIPO Publication - Inventing the Future: An Introduction to Patents - Information for small and medium-sized businesses
- U.S.P.T.O. Patent Tools - a government site with links to online patent tools
- Patent Center - U.S. government site for searching and accessing patent applications and file histories
- BYU Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic - a partnership with the USPTO enabling free representation for patent and other legal work
- U.S.P.T.O. Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions - help with identifying inventor(s) when AI is involved
- PatentlyO Article about AI-Assisted Inventorship - layman's interpretation of the U.S.P.T.O guidance