A federal standard enforced by the PTO to determine whether an invention is worthy of a limited monopoly. Patentability requires that the invention be of patentable subject matter, novel, useful and non-obvious.
Patentability is the ability of an invention to satisfy the legal requirements for obtaining a patent, including novelty.
A process or product which satisfies certain specific criteria is said to be patentable. The criteria for patentability are: Novelty, utility, non-obviousness, and non-disclosure (See Section XIV).
To be patentable an invention must meet three criteria: it must have novelty (qv), an inventive step (qv) and be capable of industrial application.
The ability of an invention to satisfy the legal requirements for obtaining a patent, including novelty. In some countries certain types of inventions, e.g. computer software and plants, may be unpatentable.
Within the context of a national or multilateral body of law, an invention is patentable if it meets the relevant legal conditions to be granted a patent. By extension, patentability also refers to the substantive conditions that must be met for a patent to be held valid.