Few successful products emerge in a straightforward manner, suffering no setbacks or diversions along the way. Gatorade is no exception. U.S. Patent from the 1970s. They had no takers. But they still believed they had made a worthwhile invention.
Patents protect the rights of inventors to their inventions.
A United States Patent prohibits anyone but its owners from making, using or selling the invention as described by the claims in the patent, for twenty years after the inventors file their patent application . The inventors came to the United States Patent Office with a description of Gatorade and a series of claims about the product. United States Patents convey the power of exclusion. If the Patent Office issued the doctors' patent, the doctors would give up their secrets. The claims would describe to the public the composition of Gatorade.