When people what to protect something they wrote, designed or any other form of creativity, they can use the copyright laws. Everything can be protected as long as it is real: from songs, movies, and writings to HTML coding or designs. The copyright ensures that you have the right to use it, see it, perform it and reproduce the product without limitations.



In the United States the guarantee for a patent (which is also an intellectual property) is ensured by the USPTO, in other words, United States Patent and Trademark Office. Registering your patent there will keep anyone from distributing, selling or copying your patent for a certain amount of time. The Patent Act, 35 U.S.C. refers to the United States patent and clears any form of confusion concerning the law.

There are subjects which are not given patent protection. It includes mental processes, physical phenomena, abstract ideas, and nature laws. Take for instance; you can't patent a new plant, insect, or mineral found or discovered in the wilderness. Likewise, the law of gravity couldn't have patented by Newton and "E=mC2" by Einstein. Any discovery which shows characteristics of nature is not reserved for a single person since it is free to all. Nature laws and abstract ideas are reserved for public domain. Artistic, musical, dramatic, or literary works are entitled for copyright protection. Inventions which are offensive and not useful are deprived of a patent right.

The purpose of this patent law is to protect the inventors from intellectual property stealing, but only for a certain time. They gain right on their inventions and can use them in any form they wish. There is also a system which will give the inventors restricted monopoly on their ideas, in order to use and sell. The law is stated in the U.S. Constitution, Clause 8 of Section 8 of Article I.

Any invention has the right to be displayed to public; however, it will not be copied or distributed without the owner's permission. If you want to patent an invention, you have to make sure before applying, that you have a well described usage and it fits the standard criteria.

Although they contain nature laws, like mathematical algorithms, software programs can be patented as long as they are original. In 1981, the Supreme Court declared patent protection for software and software related, only if they use certain nature laws to create something original.

Only unique ideas or new useful inventions can obtain protection. Unless the invention is easily applicable and has a well served purpose, it will not fit the requirements in order to be protected. Also, inventions that are too obvious will have the same fate. Inventions which were sold before being registered will not qualify, when trying to obtain copyright. People who invent the same thing in different parts of the world cannot obtain protection rights easily.

The patent claims are described as follows: a preamble (an introduction part), the steps for its implementation, and the main part which refers to its rights of not being copied, distributed, or sold by anyone except the owner.