The advantages of patenting a manufacturing process In return for disclosing your inventive manufacturing process in a patent, you're able to prevent others from using the same process for a period of up to 20 years.
To obtain a patent, an inventor should draft a patent application and then submit it to a national or regional intellectual property (IP) office. This process includes several steps and entails diverse costs, depending on the regional or national laws of the country or contries in which the application is filed.
A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention. In other words, a patent is an exclusive right to a product or a process that generally provides a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem.
A utility patent covers the creation of a new or improved—and useful—product, process, or machine. A utility patent, also known as a "patent for invention," prohibits other individuals or companies from making, using, or selling the invention without authorization.
While ideas alone cannot be patented, you can obtain a patent on an invention that was developed from an idea. Note this: if you pursue a patent, an invention must be actually produced, or at minimum, a detailed description of the invention has to be included with the patent application.
Patents may be granted for inventions in any field of technology, from an everyday kitchen utensil to a nanotechnology chip. An invention can be a product – such as a chemical compound, or a process, for example – a process for producing a specific chemical compound.
Do some more research. An idea cannot be patented. Patent laws define the subject matter which can be protected, typically an apparatus, product, process or composition of matter. There must be some reduction to practice -- actual or constructive -- in one of those classes for a patent to issue.
Technically, it is possible to patent a new use of an existing product. Realistically, it might not be worth applying because you would have to show that the new use is nonobvious. Even if you believe your use to spectacularly nonobvious, expect an uphill battle.
In United States patent law, a method, also called "process", is one of the four principal categories of things that may be patented through "utility patents". The other three are a machine, an article of manufacture (also termed a manufacture), and a composition of matter.