Patent

A patent is a right to property, intellectual in nature, conferred by the Government of the United States of America to an inventor. A patent permits its owner to bar others from using, offering for sale, making, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States for the term of the patent in trade for communication of the invention to the world. Novel (original), non-obvious, and useful machines, articles of manufacture, processes, compositions of matter, and enhancements to the preceding may be patented. A patent will not be awarded for physical phenomena (the Doppler effect for example), laws of nature (Newton's Law of Gravitation for example), or abstract ideas.