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Patent   /pˈætənt/   Listen
noun
Patent  n.  
1.
A letter patent, or letters patent; an official document, issued by a sovereign power, conferring a right or privilege on some person or party. Specifically:
(a)
A writing securing to an invention.
(b)
A document making a grant and conveyance of public lands. "Four other gentlemen of quality remained mentioned in that patent." Note: In the United States, by the act of 1870, patents for inventions are issued for seventeen years, without the privilege of renewal except by act of Congress.
2.
The right or privilege conferred by such a document; hence, figuratively, a right, privilege, or license of the nature of a patent. "If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to offend."


verb
Patent  v. t.  (past & past part. patented; pres. part. patenting)  To grant by patent; to make the subject of a patent; to secure or protect by patent; as, to patent an invention; to patent public lands.


adjective
Patent  adj.  
1.
Open; expanded; evident; apparent; unconcealed; manifest; public; conspicuous. "He had received instructions, both patent and secret."
2.
Open to public perusal; said of a document conferring some right or privilege; as, letters patent. See Letters patent, under 3d Letter.
3.
Appropriated or protected by letters patent; secured by official authority to the exclusive possession, control, and disposal of some person or party; patented; as, a patent right; patent medicines. "Madder... in King Charles the First's time, was made a patent commodity."
4.
(Bot.) Spreading; forming a nearly right angle with the steam or branch; as, a patent leaf.
Patent leather, a varnished or lacquered leather, used for boots and shoes, and in carriage and harness work.
Patent office, a government bureau for the examination of inventions and the granting of patents.
Patent right.
(a)
The exclusive right to an invention, and the control of its manufacture.
(b)
(Law) The right, granted by the sovereign, of exclusive control of some business of manufacture, or of the sale of certain articles, or of certain offices or prerogatives.
Patent rolls, the registers, or records, of patents.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Patent" Quotes from Famous Books



... points, and there was a good deal of gray in his beard, which was parted German fashion in the middle, and carefully brushed to each side. His top hat was unmistakably French, with a flat rim, and his boots were of patent leather. As he opened his long caped cloak, the collar of which he kept turned up, it was seen that ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... treaty stipulations with various Indian tribes for the year ending June 30, 1892, and for other purposes;" except as to so much of said acts and sections as may conflict with the provisions of this act. Each settler on the lands so to be opened to settlement as aforesaid shall before receiving a patent for his homestead pay to the United States for the lands so taken by him, in addition to the fees provided by law, the sum of $2.50 per acre for any land east of 97-1/2 deg. west longitude, the sum of $1.50 per acre for any land between 97-1/2 ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... forever coming upon things which Thyrsis ought to buy. Very quickly the neighborhood discovered this propensity of his, and there was a constant stream of farmers who came to offer second-hand buggies, and wind-broken horses, and dried-up cows, and patent hay-rakes and churns and corn-shellers at reduced values; all of which rather tended to reveal to Thyrsis the unlovely aspects of his neighbors, and to weaken his faith in the ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... have pointed out are only preliminary ones, patent on the surface. A more fundamental one still, which the writer feels may prove insurmountable, is based on a law of nature which we are bound to accept. It is that when we increase the size of any flying-machine without changing its model we increase the weight in proportion to the cube ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... wheel on the shaft of the sun wheel, called the fly wheel, which equalised the rate of motion to uniformity. Watt invented the crank for his engine, but one of his men gave the tip to an engineer at Bristol, who forthwith took out a patent for it and forestalled Watt, who had to invent another means—the sun and planet. But when the term of the patent expired, Watt resumed the crank method instead of the sun and planet, which was noisy, the wear and tear ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor


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