A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the patent office of the country granting the patent, generally for a period of 20 years from the date on which the patent application was filed. A patent grants the patent holder the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale or selling the invention in the country where the invention is patented or the importation a product made by use of that invention into the country where the invention was patented.

Patents may contribute up to approximately 2/3 the valuation of a high technology company. The monetary value of a patent increases the valuation of a company and can also be used by a company as collateral to obtain funding. Market valuation of a patent also assists the patent owner to estimate the commercial feasibility of the product and to plan and market the product more effectively.

The sooner the better. The patent application may be filed at the conceptual stage of the product. A provisional patent application may be filed before a non-provisional patent application (or regular patent application) at the conceptualization stage of the invention.

In most countries including Europe and Japan, the inventor loses the right to file a patent application if the invention is disclosed to the public before a patent application is filed. The safest route for an inventor is to withhold commercialization or public disclosure of the invention until patent pending status is obtained for the invention by the filing of a patent application. United States and Canada are two notable exceptions where an inventor can obtain a patent after the inventive concept becomes public knowledge provided a patent application for the inventive concept is filed within (1) one year of such disclosure.

An idea may also be protected for (1) one year by filing a provisional patent application. A regular or non-provisional patent application must be filed within one year of the filing date of the provisional patent application, failing which the applicant looses the priority date of the earlier filed provisional patent application. For industry design and trademarks, the non-provisional must be filed within 6 months of the date of filing of the provisional application

No. A patent granted for a product by a country only provides patent protection for that product in that country. For example, a patent granted by the US PTO will protect the patented invention only in the United States of America. To protect the same invention in any other country, for example, India, another patent application has to be filed in the Indian Patent Office.

Since patenting an invention in each foreign country is an expensive proposition, a foreign patent should be taken out only in the country in which a market for that product exists, or where a market for the product can be created or where the patented product can be manufactured for export to other countries.
An international patent application can be filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) with the World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. The PCT has over 125 contracting member states in which the patent application can be filed to protect the invention. Filing a PCT application within 30 months of the first filed application allows the applicant to obtain the filing date of the first filed application in all the contracting states of the PCT.

In almost every country of the world except the US, the patent is granted to the person that files the patent application first. In the US, the patent is granted to the first to invent provided the applicant diligently pursues the filling of the application with the U.S.PTO.

Software, like any other inventive concept, is patentable provided it meets the requirements for patentability by the patent office of that country.