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In patent law, an inventor is the person, or persons in United States patent law, who contribute to the claims of a patentable invention. In some patent law frameworks, however, such as in the European Patent Convention (EPC) and its case law , no explicit, accurate definition of who exactly is an inventor is provided.
Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited time (usually, 20 years) from profiting from a patented technology without the consent of the patent ...
When an inventor conceives of an invention and diligently reduces the invention to practice (by filing a patent application, by making, testing, and improving prototypes, etc.), the inventor's date of invention will be the date of conception. Thus, provided an inventor is diligent in actually reducing an application to practice, he or she will ...
(d) the invention was first patented or caused to be patented, or was the subject of an inventor's certificate, by the applicant or his legal representatives or assigns in a foreign country prior to the date of the application for patent in this country on an application for patent or inventor's certificate filed more than twelve months before ...
If an inventor obtains a patent on improvements to an existing invention which is still under patent, they can only legally use the improved invention if the patent holder of the original invention gives permission, which they may refuse. Some countries have "working provisions" that require the invention be exploited in the jurisdiction it covers.
The law switched the U.S. rights to a patent from the previous "first-to-invent" system to a "first inventor-to-file" system for patent applications filed on or after March 16, 2013. The law also expanded the definition of prior art used in determining patentability.