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#REDIRECT [[Enzo Ferrari (car)]]
:''This article relates to the [[intellectual property]] right. A '''[[land grant]]''' is also called a patent''.
{{Intellectual property}}
A '''patent''' is a set of [[exclusive right]]s granted by a [[state]] to a person for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, [[public]] disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an [[invention]]) which is [[novelty (patent)|new]], [[inventive step and non-obviousness|inventive]], and [[utility (patent)|useful]] or [[industrial applicability|industrially applicable]].
The exclusive right granted a patentee is the right to ''prevent others'' from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing the [[claim (patent)|claim]]ed invention. The rights given to the patentee do not include the right to make, use, or sell the invention themselves. The patentee may have to comply with other laws and regulations to make use of the claimed invention. So, for example, a [[pharmacology|pharmaceutical]] company may obtain a patent on a new [[medication|drug]] but will be unable to market the drug without regulatory approval, or an inventor may patent an improvement to a particular type of [[laser]], but be unable to make or sell the new design without a license from the owner of an earlier broader patent covering lasers of that type.
The term "patent" originates from the [[Latin]] word ''patere'' which means "to lay open" (i.e. make available for public inspection) and the term ''[[letters patent]]'', which originally denoted [[royal decree]]s granting exclusive rights to certain individuals or [[business]]es.
== Legal effect==
A modern patent provides the [[right]] to ''exclude others'' from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented [[invention]] for the [[Term of patent|term]] of the patent. A patent is, in effect, a limited property right that the government offers to inventors in exchange for their agreement to share the details of their inventions with the public.
In order to obtain a patent, an applicant must provide a written description of his or her invention in [[sufficiency of disclosure|sufficient detail]] for a person skilled in the art to make and use the invention. This written description is provided in what is known as the patent specification, which often is accompanied by figures that show how the invention is made and how it operates. In addition, at the end of the specification, the applicant must provide the patent office with one or more [[Claim (patent)|claims]] that distinctly point out what the applicant regards as his or her invention. A claim, unlike the body of the specification, is not a detailed description of the invention, but a succinct series of words designed to provide the public with notice of precisely what the patent owner has a right to exclude others from making, using, or selling. Claims are often analogized to a deed or other instrument that, in the context of real property, sets the metes and bounds of an owner's right to exclude. It is the claims that define what a patent covers or does not cover. A single patent may contain numerous claims, each of which is regarded as a distinct invention.
In order for a patent to be granted, that is to take legal effect, the patent application must meet the requirements of the national law, in particular those related to [[patentability]].
A patent is an exclusionary right-it gives the right to exclude others from infringing the patent, but that does not necessarily give the owner of the patent the right to exploit the patent. This is so since many inventions relate to improvements of prior inventions which may still be covered by someone else's patent. For example, if an inventor takes an existing patented [[mouse trap]] design, adds a new feature to make an improved mouse trap, and obtains a patent on the improvement, he or she can only legally build his or her improved mouse trap with permission from the patent holder of the original mouse trap, assuming the original patent is still in force. On the other hand, the owner of the improved mouse trap can exclude the original patent owner from using the improvement.
Patents are typically enforced through [[litigation|civil lawsuit]]s (for example, for a US patent, by an action for patent infringement in a United States federal court). Typically, the patent owner will seek monetary compensation for past infringement, and will seek an [[injunction]] prohibiting the defendant from engaging in future acts of infringement. In order to prove infringement, the patent owner must establish that the accused infringer practices all of the requirements of at least one of the claims of the patent.
An important limitation on the ability of a patent owner to successfully assert his or her patent in civil litigation is the accused infringer's right to challenge the validity of that patent. Civil courts hearing patent cases can and often do declare patents invalid. The grounds on which a patent can be found invalid are set out in the relevent patent legislation and vary between countries. Often, the grounds are a sub-set of the requirements for [[patentability]] in the relevent country.
The vast majority of patent rights, however, are not determined through litigation, but are resolved privately through patent licensing. Patent [[license|licensing agreements]] are effectively [[contract]]s in which the patent owner (the licensor) agrees not to sue the licensee for infringement of the licensor's patent rights. It is not uncommon for companies engaged in complex technical fields to enter into dozens of license agreements associated with the production of a single product. Moreover, it is equally common for competitors in such fields to license patents to each other under [[cross-licensing]] agreements in order to gain access to each other's patents. A cross license agreement could be highly desirable to the mouse trap developers discussed above, for example, because it would permit both parties to profit off each other's inventions.
=== Governing laws ===
The grant and enforcement of patents are governed by national laws, and also by international treaties, where those treaties have been given effect in national laws. Patents are, therefore, territorial in nature.
Commonly, nations form a Patent Office with responsibility for operating that nations patent system, within the relevant patent laws. The Patent Office generally has responsibility for the grant of patents, with infringement being the remit of national courts. There are some international offices, such as the [[European Patent Organisation|European Patent Office]] (EPO) and the International Bureau of the [[World Intellectual Property Organisation]] (acting under the [[Patent Cooperation Treaty]] or PCT), that centralise some portion of the filing and examination processes. The EPO grants European patents, which are nationally enforceable. In contrast, patents are not granted during the international phase under the Patent Cooperation Treaty: an applicant must enter national or regional phase after completion of the international phase, i.e. he must start procedure before the national patent offices in order to obtain national or regional patents.
There is a trend towards global harmonisation of patent laws, with the [[World Trade Organization|WTO]] being particularly active in this area. The [[Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights|TRIPs Agreement]] has been largely successful in providing a forum for nations to agree on an aligned set of patent laws. Conformity with the TRIPs agreement is a requirement of admission to the WTO and so compliance is seen by many nations as important. This has also led to many developing nations, which may historically have developed different laws to aid their development, enforcing patents laws in line with global practice.
A highly notable international convention related to patents is the [[Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property]] which was initially agreed in [[1883]]. The Paris Convention sets out a range of basic rules relating to patents, and although the convention does not have direct legal effect, the principles of the convention are incorporated into all notable current patent systems. The most significant aspect of the convention is the provision of the right to claim [[priority right|priority]], which right is fundamental to modern patent usage and which is provided in line with the convention.
The authority for patent statutes in different countries varies. In the United States for instance, the [[United States Patent and Trademark Office|Patent and Trademark Office]] gets its authority from statutes in [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode35/usc_sup_01_35.html Title 35] of the [[United States Code]], which in turn is based on [[United States Constitution/Article One|Article One]], Section 8 of the [[United States Constitution|U.S. Constitution]]. In the UK, the [[United Kingdom Patent Office]] derives its authority from the Patents Act 1977, as modified.
== Economic rationale==
{{details|Economics and patents}}
There are four primary justifications for granting patents: innovation, disclosure, production investment, and designing around.
First, in accordance with the original definition of the term "patent", it is argued that patents facilitate and encourage disclosure of [[innovation]]s into the [[public ___domain]] for the [[common good]]. If [[inventor]]s did not have the legal protection of patents, they may prefer or tend to keep their inventions secret. Awarding patents generally makes the details of new technology publicly available, for exploitation by anyone after patent protection ends, or for further improvement by other inventors (who may in turn patent these improvements). Furthermore, when a [[term of patent|patent's term]] has expired, the public record ensures that the patentee's idea is not lost to humanity.
Second, it is broadly believed that patents incentivize economically efficient [[research and development]] (R&D). Many large modern [[corporation]]s have annual R&D budgets of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. Without patent protection, R&D spending would be significantly less or eliminated altogether, limiting the possibility of technological advances or breakthroughs. Corporations would be much more conservative about the R&D investments they made, as third parties would be [[free rider problem|free to exploit]] any developments. This second justification is closely related to the basic idea underlying traditional [[property (ownership right)|property rights]]: why build a house if another person could freely occupy it?
Third, in many industries (especially those with high fixed costs and low marginal costs and low reverse engineering costs - pharmaceuticals and computers being the two prototyical examples), once an invention exists and has been tested, the cost of actually turning it into a product is typically six times or more the R&D cost. {{citation needed}} Unless there is some way to prevent copies from competing at the marginal cost of production, companies will not make that productization investment.
Fourth, many believe that patent rights create an incentive for companies to develop workarounds to patented inventions, thereby creating improved or alternative technologies that might not otherwise have been developed.
One interesting side effect of modern day patent usage is that the small-time inventor can use the exclusive right status to become a licensor. This allows the inventor to accumulate capital quickly from licensing the invention and may allow rapid innovation to occur because he/she may choose to not manage a manufacturing buildup for the invention. Thus, time and energy can be spent on pure innovation and allow others to concentrate on manufacturability.
===Criticism===
There are arguments in opposition to patent rights. Granting a patent confers a "negative right" upon a patent owner, because he or she may legally exclude competitors from using or exploiting the invention, even if the competitor subsequently (either subsequent to the date of invention, or to the [[priority date]], depending upon the relevant patent law - see [[First to file and first to invent]]) independently develops the same invention. It is argued that monopolies create inefficiency, and that since the grant of a patent is, essentially, the grant of a monopoly, the patent system may stifle [[competition]] and result in higher prices, lower quality, and shortages.
A more subtle problem with patent rights was put forth by law professors [[Michael Heller (law professor)|Michael Heller]] and [[Rebecca Eisenberg]] in a 1998 ''Science'' article. Building from Heller's theory of the [[tragedy of the anticommons]], the professors postulated that intellectual property rights may become so widely fragmented that, effectively, no one can take advantage of them as to do so would require an agreement between the owners of all of the fragments.
All patents are published and so there is a tension to the applicant between including sufficient detail to secure patent protection and including excessive information and thereby giving away "trade secrets" to the disadvantage of their company. It has been argued that the sufficiency requirements of patents are not rigorous enough and that patents are sometimes granted without any knowledge being imparted to society, especially with reference to source-code in software programs. It has also been suggested that market incentives alone would be sufficient incentive to innovate even in the absence of patents.
Historical evidence can be found both in favour of patent systems and against it. The mid-19th century dyestuffs industry faltered in Britain where patent protection was available, and flourished in Germany despite the absence of such protections. In contrast, patent protection has enabled inventors to protect their innovative products from larger companies and receive reward for their advances, for example, the [[Dyson (appliances)|Dyson]] vacuum cleaner has led to a very significant shift in the vacuum cleaner market and the inventor has benefitted from patent protection.
In response to perceived problems with the grant of patents, and the evolving nature of technology and industry, there is on-going debate about, and reform of, patent systems around the world. The [[Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights|TRIPs]] agreement, developed by the [[World Trade Organization|WTO]] has led to the alignment of many patent systems with regard to certain controversial issues, such as what can be protected by patents and the issue of [[Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights#Access to essential medicines|compulsory licences]] in cases of national need. There is also an active community who oppose patents and who lobby for the abolishment of patent systems.
== History of patents ==
{{details|History of patent law}}
[[Image:USpatents18002004.JPG|thumb|right|450px|U.S. Patents granted, 1800–2004.[http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/h_counts.htm]]]
<!-- This section needs to be summarized, all the information is to be found in [[History of patent law]] -->
Although there is evidence suggesting that something like patents was used among some ancient Greek cities, patents in the modern sense originated in Italy.
The first patent law was a Venetian Statute of [[1474]] in which the [[Republic of Venice]] issued a decree by which new and inventive devices, once they had been put into practice, had to be communicated to the Republic in order to obtain legal protection against potential infringers. England followed with the [[Statute of Monopolies 1623|Statute of Monopolies]] in [[1623]] under King [[James I of England|James I]]. Prior to this time, the crown would issue [[letters patent]] (meaning "open letter", as opposed to a letter under seal) providing any person with a "monopoly" to produce particular goods or provide particular services. The first of them was granted by [[Henry VI of England|Henry VI]] in [[1449]] to a [[Flanders (county)|Flemish]] man a 20 year monopoly on the manufacture of stained glass.
This was the start of a long tradition by the English [[The Crown|Crown]] of the granting of "[[letters patent]]" to favoured persons (or people who were prepared to pay for them). This became increasingly open to abuse as the Crown granted patents in respect of all sorts of known goods (salt, for example). This power, which was to raise money for the crown, was widely abused, and court began to limit the circumstances in which they could be granted.
After public outcry, [[James I of England|James I]] was forced to revoke all existing monopolies and declare that they were only to be used for "projects of new invention". This was incorporated into the ''Statute of Monopolies'' in which Parliament restricted the crown's power explicitly so that the King could only issue letters patents to the inventors or introducers of original inventions for a fixed number of years.
In the reign of [[Anne of Great Britain|Queen Anne]] the rules were changed again so that a written description of the article was given. Section 6 of the Statute refers to "manner[s] of new manufacture... [by] inventors", and this section remains the foundation for patent law in Australia and New Zealand. The Statute of Monopolies was later developed by the courts to produce modern patent law; this innovation was soon adopted by other countries.
In the United States, during the colonial period and Articles of Confederation years (1778-1789), several states adopted patent systems of their own. The first Congress adopted a Patent Act, in 1790. [right date?] The Supreme Court, in [http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0022_0001_ZS.html ''Gibbons v. Ogden'', 22 U.S. 1 (22 Wheat.) (1824)], recognized the existence of the [[Dormant Commerce Clause]], and voided these state patent acts. The U.S. Patent Act underwent major rewrites in 1836, [the 1870's?] and 1954.
== Obtaining a patent ==
{{details|Patent prosecution}}
{{details|Patent application}}
A patent is obtained by filing a written [[Patent application|application]] at the relevant patent office. That application will contain a specification detailing the invention and the protection claimed, together with forms relating to the procedural aspects of obtaining a patent. In most countries, including the United States, there is no requirement that the inventor actually build a prototype or otherwise reduce his or her invention to practice in order to obtain a patent.
Once a [[patent application]] has been filed, a patent office examines that application for compliance with the [[Patentability|requirements]] of the relevant patent law. If the application does not comply with all of the requirements, the objections are communicated to the Applicant (or his representative), who can then respond to those objections to attempt to overcome them to obtain the grant of a patent.
==See also==
{{wikiquote}}
See [[List of patent legal concepts]] for articles on various legal aspects of patents, including special types of patents and patent applications.
=== Organizations and patent offices ===
{{details|intellectual property organization}}
{{details|patent office}}
*[[African Regional Intellectual Property Organization]] (ARIPO)
*[[Canadian Intellectual Property Office]] (CIPO)
*[[Eurasian Patent Organization]] (EAPO)
*[[European Patent Organisation]] (EPO or EPOrg) ''(incl. European Patent Office)''
*''[[Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle]]'' (OAPI)
*[[Japan Patent Office]]
*[[United Kingdom Patent Office]]
*[[United States Patent and Trademark Office]] (USPTO)
*[[World Intellectual Property Organization]] (WIPO)
=== Treaties, conventions and other legal texts and frameworks ===
*[[Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights]] (TRIPs Agreement)
*[[American Inventors Protection Act]] (AIPA)
*[[Budapest Treaty]]
*[[Community Patent]] (''proposed'')
*''[[Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions|EU Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions]]'' (''proposed, then rejected'')
*[[Directive on the patentability of biotechnological inventions|EU Directive on the Patentability of Biotechnological Inventions]]
*[[European Patent Convention]] (EPC)
*[[European patent law]]
*[[European Patent Litigation Agreement]] (EPLA) (''proposed'')
*[[Japanese patent law]]
*[[London Agreement]] (''concluded but not in force yet'')
*[[Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property]]
*[[Patent Reform Act of 2005|U.S. Patent Reform Act of 2005]]
*[[Patent Cooperation Treaty]] (PCT)
*[[Patent Law Treaty]] (PLT)
*[[Substantive Patent Law Treaty]] (SPLT) (''proposed'')
*[[Statute of Monopolies 1623]]
*[[Convention on the Unification of Certain Points of Substantive Law on Patents for Invention|Strasbourg Convention]]
*[[United States patent law]]
=== Other ===
*[[Chartered Institute of Patent Agents]] (CIPA)
*''[[epoline]]''
*''[[esp@cenet]]''
*[[Industrial design rights]]
*[[Industrial property]]
*[[INPADOC]]
*[[Intellectual property]]
*[[International Patent Classification]] (IPC)
*[[List of patent case law]]
*[[List of people associated with patent law]]
*[[List of top United States patent recipients]]
*[[Patent attorney]]
*[[Patent clerk]]
*[[Patent Commons]]
*[[Patent model]]
*[[Patent troll]]
*[[United States Patents Quarterly]]
*[[X-Patent]]
== External links ==
=== Patent Office Web sites and other regional info ===
For a list of Patent Offices and their websites, please see [http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/urls.jsp this list] maintained by WIPO.
=== Patent organizations ===
*[http://www.pubpat.org/index.html The Public Patent Foundation] PUBPAT Represents the Public's Interests Against Wrongly Issued Patents and Unsound Patent Policy
*[http://www.ipo.org Intellectual Property Owners Association]
*[http://www.aspip.org/Default.aspx?&lang=en Arab Society for Intellectual Property]
=== Patent searches and downloads ===
* [http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/search-adv.jsp WIPO search engine for international PCT patent applications]
* [http://www.wipo.int/ipdl/en/resources/links.jsp Links to national patent offices including US, Japan, UK etc.]
*[http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair USPTO search engine for patent and patent application file histories. Displays reasons why patents are issued.]
* [http://www.exactantigen.com/ Free biomedical patent search for genes and species].
* [[esp@cenet]] - run by [[European Patent Office]] allowing free downloads of patents from most countries, including US, Japan, UK, European Patents, etc.
=== Weird and historical patents ===
* [http://www.patent.freeserve.co.uk/ ''Patently Absurd'' British Patents]
* [http://www.library.umaine.edu/patents/historical.htm Information on Historical Patents]
* [http://www.patentlysilly.com Patently Silly]
* [http://ipfunny.blogs.com IP Funny Blog]
=== Other resources ===
* [http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/khan.patents An Economic History of Patent Institutions]
* [http://www.tutorial-reports.com/innovation/patent/tutorial-patent.php Patent Tutorial] Facts about Patenting an idea.
* [http://www.inventorfraud.com/ National Inventor Fraud Center] - Information about the invention process and invention marketing companies.
* [http://www.global-innovation-data.info/Online_Resources_for_Innovators_Neil_Armand.html Online Resources for Innovators]
* [http://www.patentlawportal.com Patent Law Portal] - Patent Law News, Articles and Resouces
* [http://users.goldengate.net/~kbrady/patent.html Patent Myths Debunked]
* [http://www.ipnewsflash.com IP Newsflash] - patent caselaw and news regarding patents
* [http://www.ipmenu.com IPMenu] - IP information directory with search capabilities
* [http://dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/about.html Peer to patent]
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