How does an invention become a patent?
In the United States (unlike most other countries) a patent is granted to the person who is first to invent. After an application for a patent is filed with the USPTO, the patent office examines the application to make sure that the invention is new, useful, and unobvious. This examination process assures that the inventor was in fact the first to invent this invention. The process of examination requires that the examiner review the “prior art” in the technical field of the invention. After reviewing the prior art in the field, if the examiner is convinced that the invention is new and non-obvious then the examiner will grant the applicant a patent.
