patent

provides the patent holder, or patentee, the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing an invention for 20 years from the date of the patent's issuance. A patent is a government-sponsored monopoly, designed to reward the inventor by providing him with incentive to risk time, effort, and money in developing new technologies. In order to earn patent protection, an invention must be

• New
• Useful
• Nonobvious

Patentable material includes machines, processes, man-made items, compositions of matter, and improvements on any of these items - for all intents and purposes, "anything under the sun produced by man," or the methods of such production.

A grant by a patent office giving the grantee the right to exclude others from practicing a claimed invention in the jurijurisdiction of the patent office.

A grant by the federal government to an inventor of the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing a patented invention. Patents that cover structural or functional aspects of products, composition, and processes are utility patents. Other types of patents include design patents covering ornamental designs of useful objects and plant patents covering new varieties of living plants.

A grant to an inventor of the right to exclude others, for a limited time, from making, using, or selling his invention in the United States.

a property right granted by the Government of the United States of America to an inventor "to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States" for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted.

-- see also design patent, nonprovisional patent application, plant patent, provisional patent application, reexamination proceedings, reissue application, utility patent

A legal permission to hold exclusive right - for a defined period of time - to manufacture, use or sell an invention.

When applied to genetics, the government regulations or requirements conferring the right or title to an individual or organization to genes if there has been substantial human intervention. See also gene

In genetics, conferring the right or title to genes, gene variations, or identifiable portions of sequenced genetic material to an individual or organization. See also: gene