INVENTION

6 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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Definition
In patent law, an invention is a new and non-obvious process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter — or an improvement thereof — produced through independent creative effort and conceived by a human mind. The term carries two related meanings in legal usage: 1. The act of inventing: the mental and practical process of conceiving and reducing to practice something not previously known or existing, requiring more than mere discovery of a naturally occurring phenomenon or the mechanical combination of known elements. 2. The product of that act: the specific article, process, device, or composition that results from the inventive process and that may qualify for patent protection. Critically, patent law distinguishes invention from discovery. A discovery reveals something that already exists in nature; an invention creates or contrives something that did not previously exist in the relevant form. This distinction carries practical weight: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable subject matter, while genuine inventions — including those that apply natural principles in new ways — may be. ---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Something invented; the act of inventing; the capacity to invent; also colloquially, any creative contrivance or even a fabrication. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of finding out or contriving something that did not previously exist; also the thing so contrived; used broadly to include both creative production and skillful fabrication. The gap between common and legal meaning is real but subtle. Ordinary usage treats "invention" expansively — a story, a clever excuse, or a musical composition can each be an "invention." Legal usage is far narrower: an invention must be novel, non-obvious, and directed to patentable subject matter. A brilliant creative work is not an invention in patent law; it is the subject of copyright. The common usage also conflates invention with discovery in ways that patent law emphatically does not permit. ---
Common Confusion
INVENTION vs. DISCOVERY: These terms are treated as near-synonyms in ordinary speech. Patent law treats them as fundamentally distinct. A discovery is the recognition of something already existing in nature — a newly identified mineral, a law of physics, a mathematical relationship. An invention is the creation of something new that did not exist in that form before. The courts have long held that discoveries of natural phenomena are not patentable, while inventions that apply principles drawn from nature may be. Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century sources should note that the invention/discovery line was not always drawn with modern precision, and some older treatises use the terms loosely. INVENTION vs. INNOVATION: Not a legal distinction, but common in IP policy literature. "Innovation" typically refers to the commercial development and deployment of inventions; "invention" refers to the original creative act. Neither term substitutes for the other in patent prosecution. ---
Core Elements
For a creation to qualify as a patentable invention under U.S. patent law, it must satisfy four distinct threshold requirements before other conditions (novelty, non-obviousness, adequate disclosure) are evaluated: 1. Patentable subject matter: The invention must fall within a recognized statutory category — process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or an improvement thereof. Abstract ideas, laws of nature, and natural phenomena are categorically excluded. 2. Utility: The invention must have a specific, substantial, and credible use. 3. Human conception: Invention requires a human inventor. The inventive act is the mental step of conceiving the idea, not merely the physical act of building or discovering. 4. Reduction to practice: Either actual reduction (building and testing) or constructive reduction (filing a patent application with sufficient disclosure) completes the inventive act for legal purposes. ---
Why It Matters in Research
The term "invention" is deceptively simple in the Law Mind corpus. Several navigational points are worth flagging: The threshold for what counts as a patentable invention has shifted substantially over time. Pre-twentieth-century cases and treatises often set a higher threshold for what qualified, emphasizing the exercise of "inventive faculty" as a qualitative standard. The modern statutory framework — particularly the move toward explicit non-obviousness analysis following the 1952 Patent Act — replaced much of the older judicial vocabulary. Researchers reading older opinions should be alert to the gap between what courts called "invention" and what today's law requires. The invention/discovery distinction is especially important for researchers tracking subject matter eligibility doctrine. The line has been actively contested in litigation over software, biotechnology, and business method patents. Cases and commentary in the corpus on these subjects frequently turn on whether a claimed advance constitutes an invention or merely the identification of a naturally occurring phenomenon. In employment contexts, "invention" carries its own set of legal meanings in pre-invention assignment agreements and shop rights doctrine. What counts as an invention for purposes of an employer's ownership claim may differ from the patent law definition. Researchers should consult the related encyclopedia entry for this distinction. Bouvier's entry simply cross-references PATENT without substantive discussion — a common deflection in early dictionaries that signals how deeply patent law had already absorbed the term by the mid-nineteenth century. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are broadly consistent on the core definition: invention is the act and product of finding out or contriving something new, requiring exercise of the understanding beyond mere mechanical assembly. Black's (both editions) tracks this closely, emphasizing "independent investigation and experiment" as the operative standard. Anderson's adds a clarifying negative: simply combining two things never previously combined does not suffice. This reflects an early articulation of what would later be codified as the non-obviousness requirement. Burrill's entry is the most linguistically interesting, tracing the Latin root (inventio, from invenire, to find out) and connecting the term etymologically to both "finding out" and, notably, to pledge or mortgage concepts — a reminder that invadiationes appears in the same etymological neighborhood, though the legal senses diverged entirely. Burrill correctly identifies that the core legal meaning had already attached to the patent context by his time. None of the historical dictionaries grapple seriously with the invention/discovery distinction as a doctrinal problem, and none anticipate the subject matter eligibility debates that would come to dominate modern patent litigation. Researchers relying solely on these sources will miss the substantial evolution in what the law treats as the outer boundaries of the concept. ---
Jurisdictional Note
In the United States, the definition of invention is governed primarily by federal patent statutes and case law; state law has almost no role. Other common law jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and Canada, use analogous concepts but with different terminology and doctrinal frameworks — "inventive step" in UK and EU practice corresponds roughly to the non-obviousness requirement in U.S. law but is not identical. International treaty instruments (Paris Convention, PCT) use the term without defining it, leaving substantive definition to national law. ---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
IP in Employment — Invention Assignment, Shop Rights, and Pre-Invention Agreements (Law Mind Intellectual Property Encyclopedia): Essential reading for any research question involving who owns an invention created in an employment context, including the specific legal definition of "invention" that controls in pre-invention assignment clauses. ---
Related Terms
Patent — the legal instrument protecting an invention Inventor — the person who conceives the invention Discovery — the legally distinct act of identifying existing natural phenomena Novelty — the requirement that an invention be new Non-obviousness — the requirement that an invention not be an obvious step from the prior art Prior art — the body of existing knowledge against which novelty and non-obviousness are measured Reduction to practice — the act completing the inventive process Patentable subject matter — the threshold category requirement Invention assignment — contractual transfer of rights in an invention from inventor to another party Shop rights — employer's implied license to use an employee's invention made with employer resources
INVENTIONmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
In patent law. The act or operation of finding out something new; the process of contriving and producing something not previously known or existing, by the exercise of independent investigation and experiment. Also the article or contriv- ance or composition so invented. An "invention" differs from a "discovery." The former term is properly applicable to the contriv- ance and production of something that did not be- fore exist; while discovery denotes the bringing into knowledge and use of something which, al- though it existed, was before unknown. Thus, we speak of the "discovery" of the properties of light, electricity, etc., while the telescope and the elec- tric motor are the results of the process of "inven- tion."
INVENTIONmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
In patent law. The act or operation of finding out something new; the process of contriwing and producing something not previously known or existing, by the exercise of independent investigation and experiment. Also the article or contrivance or composition so invented. See LelGersdorf v. Flint, 15 Fed. Cas. 260; Smith v. Nichols, 21 Wall. 118, 22 L. Ed. 566; Hollister v. Manufacturing Co., 1138 U. S. 72, & Sup. Ct. 717, 28 L. Ed. 901; Murphy Mfg. Co. v. Excelsior Car Roof Co. (C. C.) 70 Fed. 495. An “invention” differs from a “discovery.” The former term is properly applicable to the contrivance and production of something that did not before exist; while discovery denotes the bringing into knowledge and use of something which, although it existed, was before unknown. ‘Thus, we speak of the “discovery” of the properties of light, electricity, etc., while the telescope and the electric motor are the results of the process of “invention.”
INVENTIONmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
synonymous, an indictment for unlawful sales of "spirituous and intoxicating" liquors is not supported by proof of sales of liquors which are intoxicating but not spirituous. 1 See further CONDITION; DRUNKENNESS; LIQUOR; POLICY, Public. Finding out, by some effort of the understanding; not merely putting two things together, although never done before.9 The process of thought and experiment by which some new machine, composition, design, improvement or other article or thing is brought into existence; also, the thing itself thus produced. Commonwealth v. Livermore, 4 Gray, 20 (1855). * Stewart v. M'Kean, 29 E. L. & Eq. 391 (1855), Alderson, B. 3 [O'Donnell v. McIntyre, 16 Abb. N. Cas. 88 (1885). 43 Bl. Com. 169; 9 Ill. 170. 5 L. in ure, in operation, work, use. Preferred to enure. See 2 Bl. Com. 347. * Dickerson v. Colgrove, 100 U. S. 583, 584 (1879). F. inventer, to devise: L. in venire, to come upon, find out. • Earle v. Sawyer, 4 Mas. 5 (1825), Story, J. Useful invention. Such invention as may be applied to some beneficial use in society, in contradistinction to an invention which is injurious to the morals, the health, or the good order of society.5 All improvement is not invention; to entitle it to protection it must be the product of some exercise of the inventive faculties, and involve something more than what is obvious to persons skilled in the art.6 The improvement must be distinct from the conception which originated the original article or product. A mere carrying forward or new or more extended application of the original thought, a change only in form, proportion, or degree, the substitution of equivalents, doing substantially the same thing in the same way by substantially the same means with better results, is not such invention as will sustain a patent.7 1 Reed v. Cutter, 1 Story, 596, 599 (1841), Story, J. 2 The Stanley Works v. Sargent & Co., 8 Blatch. 346 (1871), Shipman, J. See also Smith v. Goodyear Co., 93 U. S. 495 (1876); Washburn & Moen Manuf. Co. v. Haish, 10 Biss. 72-75 (1880); Western Electric Light Co. v. Chicago Electric Light Manuf. Co., 11 id. 427 (1882); Gardner v. Herz, 118 U. S. 180 (1886), cases, Blatchford, J.; Pomace Holder Co v. Ferguson, 119 id. 338 (1886), cases. 3 Celluloid Manuf. Co. v. Zylonite Novelty Co., 30 F. R. 617 (1887). * Wilcox v. Bookwalter, 31 F. R. 229 (1887). • Bedford v. Hunt, 1 Mas. 303 (1817), Story, J.; 18 Wis. 442; 13 Ν. Η. 318. • Pearce v. Mulford, 102 U. S. 118 (1980), Strong, J. Smith v. Nichols, 21 Wall. 119 (1874), Swayne, J. See also Stephenson v. Brooklyn R. Co., 114 U. S. 154 (1885), cases. a
INVENTIONn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
The act of finding out or inventing; contrivance or construction of that which has not before existed; as, the invention of logarithms; the invention of the art of printing. That which is invented; an original contrivance or construction; a device; as, this fable was the invention of Esop; that falsehood was her own invention. We entered by the drawbridge, which has an invention to let one fall if not premonished. Evelyn. Thought; idea. Shak. A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a falsehood. Filling their hearers With strange invention. Shak. The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of invention. They lay no less than a want of invention to his charge; a capital crime, . . . for a poet is a maker. Dryden. The exercise of the imagination in selecting and treating a theme, or more commonly in contriving the arrangement of a piece, or the method of presenting its parts. Invention of the cross (Eccl.), a festival celebrated May 3d, in honor of the finding of our Savior's cross by St. Helena.
inventionnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
Something invented. | The act of inventing. | The capacity to invent. | A small, self-contained composition, particularly those in J.S. Bach’s Two- and Three-part Inventions. | The act of discovering or finding; the act of finding out; discovery.

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