To protect large investments of time and money in bioinformatics, it is imperative for researchers, management & investors in industry to be aware of the scope of protection afforded to bioinformatics tools by the legal system. The U.S. patent statute provides that whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new & useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor. The quid pro quo for obtaining patent protection is public disclosure of the invention in sufficient detail to enable a person skilled in the claimed subject matter (or art) to make and use the invention without undue experimentation. Thus, the U.S. legal system provides a framework of intellectual property protection that justifies continued investment in private research and development in bioinformatics, which is expected to revolutionize biology. In short, patent law now provides layers of protection for novel, useful and nonobvious bioinformatics-related inventions. Well-crafted patent claims, which provide the metes & bounds of the right to exclude, create valuable intellectual capital. Such intellectual capital includes the generation of royalties from licenses to make, use, market, or sell the patented invention, protection of technology-access fees & business cooperation of technology transfer. Because disciplines such as e-commerce, finance, banking, insurance and bioinformatics use related tools, the scope of such intellectual capital for bioinformatics-related inventions is vast.