patent

IPA: pˈætʌnt

(law)
An official document granting an appointment, privilege, or right, or some property or title; letters patent.
(specifically)
(originally) A grant of a monopoly over the manufacture, sale, and use of goods.
A declaration issued by a government agency that the inventor of a new invention has the sole privilege of making, selling, or using the claimed invention for a specified period.
(US, historical) A specific grant of ownership of a piece of real property; a land patent.
(by extension) A product in respect of which a patent (sense 1.2.2) has been obtained.
(figuratively)
A licence or (formal) permission to do something.
A characteristic or quality that one possesses; in particular (hyperbolic) as if exclusively; a monopoly.
(gambling) The combination of seven bets on three selections, offering a return even if only one bet comes in.
(uncountable) Short for patent leather (“a varnished, high-gloss leather typically used for accessories and shoes”). [Leather that has been given a high-gloss, shiny finish.]

(transitive, law)
To (successfully) register (a new invention) with a government agency to obtain the sole privilege of its manufacture, sale, and use for a specified period.
(US, historical) To obtain (over a piece of real property) a specific grant of ownership.
(transitive, figuratively) To be closely associated or identified with (something); to monopolize.

Conspicuous; open; unconcealed.
(baking) Of flour: fine, and consisting mostly of the inner part of the endosperm of the grain from which it is milled.
(medicine) Open, unobstructed; specifically, especially of the ductus arteriosus or foramen ovale in the heart, having not closed as would have happened in normal development.
(medicine, veterinary medicine) Of an infection: in the phase when the organism causing it can be detected by clinical tests.
Explicit and obvious.
(archaic)
Especially of a document conferring some privilege or right: open to public perusal or use.
Appointed or conferred by letters patent.
(botany) Of a branch, leaf, etc.: outspread; also, spreading at right angles to the axis.
(law) Protected by a legal patent.
(by extension, figuratively) To which someone has, or seems to have, a claim or an exclusive claim; also, inventive or particularly suited for.

Examples of "patent" in Sentences

THe temporary monopoly produced by the patent is a ‘prize’.
As it happens, Detkin is the man who coined the term "patent troll."
While copyright protects the expression of an idea, a patent is a state granted monopoly on the idea itself.
You don't believe in the term patent troll, but you also have a problem with Nilay saying that i4i isn't one?
Google's biggest ever deal probably catapulted the word patent up the list of the week's most searched for terms.
IMO, its better to have a system where the value of the patent is at least partially determined by a market mechanism.
Assuming that my grasp of the patent is accurate and considering the likelihood of Kind Code being optional, I really don't see what the big deal is here.
After this patent was published, many promised to answer the king's expectations so effectually, that the next year he published _another patent_; wherein he tells his subjects, that the _happy hour_ was drawing nigh, and by means of THE STONE, which he should soon be master of, he would pay all the debts of the nation in real _gold and silver_.