To qualify for a patent, your device must be deemed novel, useful, and nonobvious. Is it patentable? Only non-patented inventions can be patented. To determine if your device is patentable, you'll need to conduct a patent search to see what's already out there—and patented.
Mechanical engineering innovations can be protected by patenting an end product, a machine and even a technical process, preferably all of these may be protected at the same time.
A Patent is a statutory right for an invention granted for a limited period of time to the patentee by the Government, in exchange of full disclosure of his invention for excluding others, from making, using, selling, importing the patented product or process for producing that product for those purposes without his ...
For example, the laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas cannot be patented, nor can only an idea or suggestion. Other restrictions include the patenting of inventions exclusively related to nuclear material or atomic energy in an atomic weapon (see MPEP 2104.01).
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvements thereof, may obtain a patent, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Nearly anything can be patented. Machines, medicines, computer programs, articles made by machines, compositions, chemicals, biogenetic materials, and processes, can all be the subject matter for a United States patent.