Patents | Defensive Patents | Patent Requirements | Patent Strategies

1. Your idea must be subject matter that Congress has defined (and the courts have interpreted) to be patentable.  Machines, processes/methods, and compositions of matter are examples of patentable subject matter.  "Algorithms" and "laws of nature" (e.g. E=mc²) are examples of subject matter than cannot be patented.
2. Your idea must be new.
3. Your idea must be useful.
4. Your idea must be nonobvious (or "new enough").  Most of the back-and-forth discussions between patent firms and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) concern the nonobvious concept of "nonobviousness," which essentially means "not new enough."