Claiming of all patentable material in patent

Question

My patent may have several types of new inventions within it. If I get a patent on my one invention do I have some type of patent rights over those other novel features in the invention or do I have to claim each one individually for special rights ?

Answer 1

The protection is defined by - and only by - the claims.

You can talk about god, the world, your neighbours dog, apple and the blue LED in your patent specification, but that will not grant you any kind of protection.

The grant of a patent is primarily decided by the novelty and inventiveness of it's claims and the wording of these (the claims that are granted) decides what is protected.

Nobody may use, sell, etc. anything that falls under the literal scope of the claims of a granted patent without a license. Equivalents are protected to some extent (for further information research "doctrine of equivalents").

Anything else that appears only in the description does not entitle you to any protection.

If you do want to try to obtain protection for other material described in the application, you can pursue claims directed to that material in a continuation application or a divisional application. Any continuing application need to be filed while the parent application is still pending (i.e., before the parent goes abandoned or issues as a patent).

It should be noted that the claims need to be supported by the specification and that non-standard terms used in the claims need to be defined. Also, while what is protected is defined by the claims, any additional information disclosed in the patent becomes prior art and can be used to keep others (or even the original inventor) from obtaining further patents.