Other forms: patents
A patent is the exclusive right to make and sell an invention. File a patent, patent pending, the patent expired.
The bargain is public: you publish exactly how it works, and in exchange you get about twenty years of exclusivity. That is why patents are the largest technical library in existence. As an adjective, patent means obvious — a patent lie. Patent leather is a third sense.
1nounpatentThe exclusive right to make and sell an invention.
“The inventor applied for a patent so nobody could copy her design.”
2adjectiveobviousObvious and undisguised.
“The story was a patent lie, and nobody in the room believed it.”
patent is a legal right.
From Latin patens, lying open — letters patent were open documents anybody could read, as against sealed ones.
Middle English
patent — document granting an office, property, right, title, etc.; document granting permission, licence; papal indulgence, pardon
English, today
patent
The noun is derived from Middle English patent (“document granting an office, property, right, title, etc.; document granting permission, licence; papal indulgence, pardon”)patente, patentt, which is either:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA