Exclusive rights

U.S. Patent Law
Under U.S. patent law, a patent grants the [[owner]


 * the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States, and, if the invention is a process, of the right to exclude others from using, offering for sale or selling throughout the United States, or importing into the United States, products made by that process, referring to the specification for the particulars thereof.

for a period of 20 years from the date of the patent application.

This right is often characterized as a “monopoly.” But it is a limited monopoly, since the patent owner has no right to make, sell, use or import his own invention if in doing so he would infringe another patent.

U.S. Copyright Law
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