1. patent - Noun
2. patent - Adjective
3. patent - Verb
4. patent - Adjective Satellite
Open; expanded; evident; apparent; unconcealed; manifest; public; conspicuous.
Open to public perusal; -- said of a document conferring some right or privilege; as, letters patent. See Letters patent, under 3d Letter.
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.
Spreading; forming a nearly right angle with the steam or branch; as, a patent leaf.
A letter patent, or letters patent; an official document, issued by a sovereign power, conferring a right or privilege on some person or party.
A writing securing to an invention.
A document making a grant and conveyance of public lands.
The right or privilege conferred by such a document; hence, figuratively, a right, privilege, or license of the nature of a patent.
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.
Source: Webster's dictionaryIt is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. Jerome K. Jerome
The devil is the father of lies, but he neglected to patent the idea, and the business now suffers from competition. Josh Billings
I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of a sudden a thought occurred to me: "If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight." I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation. Albert Einstein
To tell you the truth although it would put £500 in my pockets to specify my own patent rails, I cannot do so after the experience I have had. George Stephenson
The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying. John D. Carmack
Biopiracy (is) biological theft; illegal collection of indigenous plants by corporations who patent them for their own use. Vandana Shiva