0 the official legal right to make or sell an invention for a particular number of years: --
The company took out/filed a patent on a genetically engineered tomato.
In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent on an apparatus for signalling and communicating called a Photophone.
1 → patent leather --
2 to get the official legal right to make or sell an invention: --
3 very obvious: --
4 A patent invention is protected by law so that only particular people or companies have the right to make or sell it: --
a patent screwdriver
5 the legal right to be the only one who can make, use, or sell an invention for a particular number of years --
For pharmaceutical innovations, the existing patent system provides 20 years of patent protection.
He shared his father's desperation, the desperation of a small man who watched big producers monopolize the state patents and premiums that eluded him.
For diseases specific to developing nations, the incentives conferred by patents would remain to encourage research.
On the other hand, the obligation to furnish a detailed written description of the invention that was proposed for the patent.
The patent drawings show a translucent roof constructed like the walls but this was omitted in the built project.
As a third consequence, there is a reciprocal influence of the diastolic function of the two ventricles through a widely patent oval foramen.
It is important to note that complete closure was achieved in all patients with patent oval foramen after presumed paradoxical embolism.
The arterial duct and the oval foramen were patent.