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.
For over 100 years, patents have been considered personal property entitled to full protection under the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court so held in many cases. For example, in an 1876 case, the Court stated, “A patent for an invention is as much property as a patent for land.
Patents have been used in their modern definition since the 1500s to provide inventors the exclusive right to produce and sell their inventions. Some famous examples of products that have been patented include: The Telephone: Patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. The Lightbulb: Patented in 1878 by Thomas Edison.
They are separate forms of protection, but not mutually exclusive. A software invention, for example, could be protected under copyrights (how human expression authored computer-readable code), patents (a useful, novel, and non-obvious method, device, or system), or both.