A utility patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Generally, the term of a new patent 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. U.S. patent grants are effective only within the United States, U.S. territories, and U.S. possessions. Under certain circumstances, patent term extensions or adjustments may be available.

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. Once a patent is issued, the patentee must enforce the patent without aid of the USPTO.

A patent may be granted for appropriate subject matter that constitutes a "new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter or useful improvement thereof." Appropriate subject matter ranges from the tangible (mechanical, chemical or biological) to the virtual (business methods). It does not include laws of nature, physical phenomena and abstract ideas. The patent is a legal monopoly granted by the federal government for a fixed period of time, giving the owner the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention. It should be noted that the patent is a grant to exclude others, however it does not grant its owner the legal right to make, use or sell the patented technology. Accordingly, as with certain nuclear technology, a patent may issue for which there is no market, except at the discretion of the U.S. government.

The grant of a patent is subject to very specific requirements of law. The applicant must be the first to invent. Even if first to invent, the inventor cannot sit on his rights.  A patent application must be filed within one year of the date the discovery is first published or embodiments of the invention are placed on public display or go "on sale."  The "on sale" date is the earliest date the invention is first subject to an enforceable contract for sale, lease or other disposition (offered for sale) or demonstrated to a prospective purchaser.  Failing to timely file an application may have adverse consequences, even absent public disclosure or offers for sale. Whether or not an actual prototype is constructed (not a requirement for patentability), the invention is “reduced to practice” by filing a patent application, sufficient in content to obtain a filing date, with the Patent Office. Unless the invention is "reduced to practice" by filing the patent application or diligently working to create a prototype within one year of the “date of conception”, patent rights may be lost to another inventor who conceives of the same invention AFTER the first inventor but reduced it to prac­tice BEFORE the first inventor