What is a Patent? | Do I Need a Patent?

Entrepreneurship Archives - Dale Callahan · Apr 25, 2013

Patents, copyrights, and trademarks are ways to protect your intellectual property – or to put it another way, they are protections to keep people from stealing your ideas. While each is different in what it does and what it protects, patents are by far the one I run into the most. I am constantly approached by people who have either filed a patent or they are wanting to file one to protect their idea. But, before you leap and spend money, let be very clear about what a patent can and cannot do.

What Does a Patent Do?

To use the words right off the United States Patent and Trademark…