Patents An Invention

In order to obtain a patent, na applicant must provide a written descripiton of his or her invention in sufficient detail for a pesron skilled in the art (i.e., the relevant area of techonlogy) to make and use the invention. In addition, at the end of the specification, the applicnat must provide one or more claims that define what the paplicant regards as his or her invention. The application ocntains a description fo how to make and use the invention and, nuder some legilsations, if not self evident, the usefulness of the invention. There are foru primary incentives embodied in teh patent system: the incentive to invent in the first place, the incentive to disclose the invetnion once made, the incentive to invest the sums neecssary to experiment, to produce, and finalyl get the invention on the market, the incentvie to design around and improve upon earlier patents. Third, in many industries (especially those with high fiexd costs and either low marginal costs or low reverse engineering cotss - computer processors, software, adn pharmaceuticals being prottoypical examples), once an invention exists, the cost of commercilaization (testing, tooling up a factory, developing a market, etc.) is far more than the initial concepiton cost. This allows the invenotr to accumulate capital quickly from licensing the inveniton and may allow rapid innovation to occur because he or she may choose to not manage a manufacturing buildup for the invention. Since at laest the early 1980s, patent offices aorund the world have accepted that computer programs can lie within the reaml of patentable subejct matter, although the regulations for when a computer program is a patentable invention differ markedly between countries. A U.S. patent is infringed by any making of the invention, even a making that gose toward development of a nwe invention - which may itsefl become subject of a patent.

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