Protecting ideas---Careers in intellectual property and patents [Career Building Blocks]

Patent law is the body of law governing the protection of rights to an invention made by an inventor and/or patent owner (such as a company or other organization which has obtained rights to a patent). Such an invention stems from an idea and may or may not result in a tangible product. Patent law protects the idea, and the owner of such an idea can prevent others from making, using, and selling a product that uses that idea by means of one or more associated patents. In the current global economic scenario, protection of intellectual property means protection from theft of potential profits that an individual or an organization can possibly make by commercialization of a patent and/or a family of patents related to a particular technology.