What is a patent?
Patent law deals with the protection of the mental concepts or creations known as inventions. The authors of the U.S. Constitution wrote a provision specifically empowering the federal government to implement a patent system. The laws and rules that govern patent law can be found in Title 35 of the United States Code, Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Manual for Patent Examination and Procedure, Official Gazette, and the United States Patent Quarterly. These sources can be found in the government section on the lower level of the MSU main library. Patent questions should be directed to the Office of Intellectual Property, 238 Administration Building, telephone number (517) 355-2186. A United States patent is a grant by the government giving a patent owner the right, for a term of years, to prohibit others from making, using, or selling the discovery or invention described in the patent document.
A patent is a property right granted by the Government of the United States of America to an inventor “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States” for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted.
A patent is the grant by a sovereign government of some privilege or authority. For example, in the United States patents can be obtained on inventions (utility patent), designs (design patent), and plants (plant patent). In the United States, a patent can be thought of as an agreement between the inventor and the government. The inventor teaches the public, in enough detail to enable a person “of ordinary skill” in the field of the invention (the average engineer, technician, scientist, or worker in the particular area of technology of the invention), how to make and use the invention without undue experimentation. In return, the inventor is given the right to exclude the public from making, using, importing, offering for sale, or selling the invention for a period of up to 20 years from the date that the application for patent is filed. See Protecting Your #1 Asset, pages 12, 50-51. Go to top.
