Rules Governing Intellectual Property [Patent Reviews]

Intellectual property (IP) is an exception to the general economic rule of free enterprise and competition. A patent provides exclusivity to its owner for a new or improved useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. A patent contains a description of the invention, drawings, and claims, which are word pictures defining the protected invention. To be patentable, a claimed invention must be 'new' and 'not obvious' at the time the applicant files his or her patent application. The claims define the scope of the protected property and also the subject matter, which has to meet the novelty and not obviousness standards. This makes claims very important, and they are typically labored over to provide as much protection as possible while satisfying the novelty and nonobviousness requirements. In this column, we discuss the rules the law imposes on IP to prevent it from undermining the general rule.