This paper presents a novel design of a rectangular microstrip patch antenna with two rectangular notches for operation at 5 GHz frequency. The proposed antenna has patch of 14 mm length and 28 mm width, it is designed and simulated on FR4 substrate of permittivity 4.1 and thickness 1.5 mm, for operating frequency of 5 GHz. The return loss is 28dB at 5 GHz. The antenna can be used for IEEE802.11a wireless local area network (WLAN) applications. © 2016 IEEE.