The patent is an intellectual property right issued by the federal government that protects creations of the human mind that also improve society and are original to their creator. That means that the person who actually came up with the idea is the person to whom the patent is awarded and accordingly that person can exclude other people from using their idea by filing a patent infringement lawsuit in federal court. Once obtained, a patent is your personal property and like other property, it can be sold or exchanged for royalty payments.
The inventor can get a patent after following a process that includes filing a patent application and seeing it through to completion with the Patent Office. In the United States, it takes approximately four years to obtain a patent from the time the application is filed to the time a patent is issued. During that time, the patent is reviewed by the Patent Office and objected to or rejected based on other references and prior arts that the Patent Office finds. The term, “prior art” simply refers to any invention existing prior to this invention.
There are two requirements that determine which patents can be issued that have to deal with how and when an inventor can get a patent: the patent not only must be new, but it must not be obvious in light of other patents that existed prior to it. This just means that if there is already something else that is nearly the same thing or your idea is very close to an existing invention and someone with reasonable skill would equate the two, it could be a bar to patentability and might make it more difficult to get a patent through the Patent Office.
Once issued, a patent is often the strongest kind of intellectual property right. It affords you the right to exclude others from using, selling, distributing, importing, exporting and manufacturing the subject matter that is claimed in the patent. What that means is it allows a monopoly right for a limited amount of time so that the owner of the patent can exercise the benefits of their invention and keep competitors away. So that is generally what the patents are and the rights that they afford.