What do patents protect?

Patents protect inventors from having their work copied by others. The work to be protected must be original, useful, and not obvious. An example of this is the popular drug Zocor. It was under patent until June, 2006, so no other company could make and sell that drug. The patent expired and now other companies can sell the drug labeled with its generic name, Simvastatin.

Once issued, a patent can be used to prevent others from making, using, selling or importing any product or service that infringes any valid claim in the issued patent, but only in countries where the patent is issued and valid.