Last updated: August 17, 2026

What is “Patentable”?

U.S. Patent law specifies the types of subject matter that can be patented, and the conditions under which a patent may be obtained.

As provided by 35 U.S.C. § 101, any person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent,” subject to the conditions and requirements of the law. The word “process” is defined by law as a process, act or method, and primarily includes industrial or technical processes. The term “machine” used in the statute needs no explanation. The term “manufacture” refers to all articles that are made. The term “composition of matter” relates to chemical compositions and may include mixtures of ingredients as well as new chemical compounds. These classes of subject matters, taken together, include practically everything that is made by man and the processes for making the products. There is one exclusion to the prior statement: The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 excludes the patenting of inventions useful solely in the utilization of special nuclear material or atomic energy in an atomic weapon (42 U.S.C. 2181 [a]).

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