patent (redirected from patent ductus venosus)

patent, in law, governmental grant of some privilege, property, or authority. Today patent refers to the granting to the inventor of a useful product or process the privilege to exclude others from making that invention. Patent is also the term for the conveyance of public lands to an individual. Patents developed out of the medieval institution of allowing monopolistic control over useful goods in order to encourage their sale and distribution; the authority was contained in letters patent (meaning open, i.e., public). The corrupt sale of such privileges and the consequent increase in the price of necessities led in England to the Statute of Monopolies (1623), which abolished all monopolies except those of inventors in their inventions.

The U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 8) authorizes Congress to enact patent legislation; the first such law was enacted Apr. 10, 1790. In 1836, Congress created the U.S. Patent Office (now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) and established the basic principles of American patent law. Comprehensive revision of that law occurred in 1870 and in 1952. In the United States any process or device may be patented if it is novel and useful and if plans and a working model are supplied. In all countries patents are valid for a limited term only (17 years in the United States); this limit ordinarily secures a profit to the inventor for a reasonable period yet will not permanently deprive the public of the free use of the invention.

The American law was designed to encourage the maximum inventiveness. Unlike many European countries where the rights to patents are limited so as to make innovations in industry easier, the United States does not require the patentee to permit the use of the invention on pain of losing the patent. Although there have been many independent inventors in the United States, most important patents today are the property of large corporations capable of exploiting them.

Injurious practices, such as withholding beneficial patents that might make obsolete some widely used product or process, have developed. Other practices, such as acquiring all patents in a given field and granting manufacturing licenses only to firms that promise to refrain from effective competition, have been repeatedly attacked by the federal government under the antitrust laws (see trust). Difficulties have also developed in the effective and equitable regulation of patents taken out by foreigners.

Bibliography

See F. L. Vaughan, The United States Patent System: Legal and Economic Conflicts in American Patent History (1956); B. W. Bugbee, Genesis of American Patent and Copyright Law (1967); C. MacLeod, Inventing the Industrial Revolution (1989).

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patent

Government grant to an inventor of the exclusive right to make, use, or sell an invention, usually for a specified term. It may be granted for a process or method that is new, useful, and not obvious, or for a new use of a known process, machine, or composition of matter or material, including asexually reproduced plants and genetically engineered organisms. It may also be granted for any new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture. The first recorded patent for an industrial invention was granted in 1421 in Florence to the architect and engineer Filippo Brunelleschi. Until recently there were wide variations in the patent systems implemented by different countries. The duration of patents recognized generally ranged from 16 to 20 years. In some countries (e.g., France), some patents were given shorter terms because the inventions had an overall general usefulness. In communist countries (e.g., the Soviet Union), patents per se were not recognized; instead, certificates were issued to inventors to ensure that they received some form of compensation for their work. The agreement establishing the World Trade Organization in the 1990s specifies a minimum set of exclusive rights that all patentees must be accorded and mandates a minimum patent term of 20 years from the date an application is filed. Patents are considered personal property and may be sold, assigned, or otherwise transferred.

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patent

1. 

a. a government grant to an inventor assuring him the sole right to make, use, and sell his invention for a limited period

b. a document conveying such a grant

2. an invention, privilege, etc., protected by a patent

3. 

a. an official document granting a right

b. any right granted by such a document

4. in the US

a. a grant by the government of title to public lands

b. the instrument by which such title is granted

c. the land so granted

5. open or available for inspection (esp in the phrases letters patent, patent writ)

6. concerning protection, appointment, etc., of or by a patent or patents

7. (esp of a bodily passage or duct) being open or unobstructed

8. Biology spreading out widely

9. (of plate glass) ground and polished on both sides

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patent [′pat·ənt]

(industrial engineering)

A certificate of grant by a government of an exclusive right with respect to an invention for a limited period of time. Also known as letters patent.

(medicine)

Open; exposed.

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Patent

Common designation for letters patent, which is a certificate of grant by a government of an exclusive right with respect to an invention for a limited period of time. A United States patent confers the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the patented subject matter in the United States and its territories. Portions of those rights deriving naturally from it may be licensed separately, as the rights to use, to make, to have made, and to lease. Any violation of this right is an infringement.

An essential substantive condition which must be satisfied before a patent will be granted is the presence of patentable invention or discovery. To be patentable, an invention or discovery must relate to a prescribed category of contribution, such as process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, plant, or design. In the United States there are different classes of patents for different members of these categories.