Your quoted definition is for copyright, not patent. Which is why you can write a Romeo-and-Juliet story and copyright that specific story, but not the entire i

Your quoted definition is for copyright, not patent. Which is why you can write a Romeo-and-Juliet story and copyright that specific story, but not the entire idea of a "doomed star-crossed lovers" story. To be patentable in the US, an invention must be a "process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof". It must be at least partly new. It must be useful. And it must be non-obvious. Abstract ideas are generally not patentable in the US, and the Supreme Court has declared that "this abstract idea, but implemented on a computer" is also generally not patentable.