Invention documentation: a primer

The paper discusses the importance of maintaining adequate records during the development of an invention. Thorough and accurate records will help to track progress, determine the best course for future work, write reports, and develop papers for publication. From a legal perspective, it is important to keep records to patent an invention. To be patentable, an invention must be new, useful, and not an obvious or routine modification of a prior invention. Court cases have determined that computer programming, if recorded on a machine readable medium (such as a floppy disk), or inventions involving programmed computers can be patented.