Found this: hope it helps:
What is a Patent?
A patent for an invention is a grant of a property right by the Government to the inventor (or his or her heirs or assigns), acting
through the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of the patent shall be 20 years from the date on which the application for the
patent was filed in the United States or, if the application contains a specific reference to an earlier filed application under 35
U.S.C. 120, 121 or 365(c), from the date the earliest such application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. The
right conferred by the patent grant extends only throughout the United States and its territories and 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 not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using,
offering for sale, selling or importing the invention. Most of the statements in the preceding paragraphs will be explained in greater
detail in later sections.
Some persons occasionally confuse patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Although there may be some resemblance in the rights of
these three kinds of intellectual property, they are different and serve differnent purposes. |
