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Useful Definitions:
A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state (national government) to an inventor or their
assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention.
The procedure for granting patents, the requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the
exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements.
Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims defining the invention which
must be new, non-obvious, and useful or industrially applicable.
The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent others
from making, using, selling, or distributing the patented invention without permission. It is just a
right to prevent others' use. A patent does not give the proprietor of the patent the right to use the
patented invention, should it fall within the scope of an earlier patent.
Under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights, patents should be available in WTO member states for any inventions, in all fields of technology,
and the term of protection available should be the minimum twenty years. Different types of patents may
have varying patent terms (i.e., durations).
Courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent.
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"Insight must precede application".
Max Planck (1919)
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