Business Method Patents are legal means of providing protection and exclusive ownership rights to individuals or companies for their business processes, product or service that are mostly implemented by computers.

Patents granted to software programming techniques and computer-implemented inventions are generally grouped under the term software patents. They include features of an invention that may be implemented, partly or wholly, by software.

Patents of living organisms, that can include plant and animal species, and related biological and biotechnology-enabled inventions, are classified as patents on life forms, or bio-patents. The USPTO demystifies IP concepts in its website, and also explains them to the younger generation thus: “If you are an intellectual property owner, you should protect your rights. If you are a user, you should respect them. It is just as wrong to steal intellectual property as it is to break into a home, steal a car, or rob a bank.”

A patent is a Government-granted exclusive right, or a set of specified rights, to an inventor, or a person who claims to be the true and first inventor (or the discoverer of a new process) to make, use or sell an invention, usually for a specified term. It may be granted for such novelties, (criteria for which are defined in law)

Filing patents requires money and time, both of which are in short supply in case you are putting together a startup. A typical U.S. patent can set you back by atleast 4K-5K USD. This post details how you can quickly and cheaply file what is called a provisional patent. In India this could cost as less as Rs 25K (around 500USD)