Despite the headlines of patent lawsuits involving hundreds of millions of dollars, most people’s understanding of what a patent is and what it does is vague at best.
A patent is the grant of a property right to an inventor of an invention, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent in the US is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States (or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed) subject to the payment of maintenance fees. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.
The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention, not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention. Whether the patent owner himself can make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention is determined by the rights of others or other laws.
