What is a Patent

What is a Patent

A patent is an intellectual property right to protect inventions, granted by a country’s government as a territorial right for a limited period. It gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, selling, and importing an invention for a limited period of years, in exchange for publishing an enabling public disclosure of the invention. When patent protection is granted the invention becomes the property of the inventor, which like any other form of property or business asset can be bought, sold, rented or hired. Patents are territorial rights: UK patents will only give the holder rights in the UK and rights to stop others from importing the patented products into the UK.

For a patent to be granted the invention must be:

• Novel
• Innovative
• Have industrial applicability

Generally, a patent has a life of 20 years and provides protection throughout the country.