american patent system

Patents have long held a distinction in human history, much further back than most realize. Like many aspects of life, it started with our most primal necessity: food. Robin Jacob, a British intellectual property expert, believes the earliest concept of a patent was in 600 BC. A chef had created “some kind of newfangled loaf …

When you talk about inventions, you’ll often talk about patents, too. But, what exactly is a patent? It is a property right for an invention that is given by the government to an inventor.  A U.S. patent gives an inventor the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling their invention …