Patent

IP

A government-granted right giving an inventor exclusive rights to make, use, and sell an invention for a limited period.

Sources

1. World Intellectual Property Organization — Patents wipo.int accessed 23 September 2026

WIPO’s definition is short: “A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention.” What it gives the holder is a power to exclude — to “prevent or stop others from commercially exploiting the patented invention for a limited period within the country or region in which the patent was granted”. Two consequences follow. A patent is a right to stop others, not a right to practise the invention yourself, which may still need regulatory approval. And it is territorial: protection exists only where it was granted, so an Indian patent does not stop copying in the EU.

WIPO’s own wording. No term of years is stated here — the page cited says only “a limited period”, and the familiar twenty-year minimum comes from the TRIPS Agreement, which this entry does not yet cite.

Deeper treatment: this term also has a full entry in the Business Library.

Related terms

• Compulsory Licensing
• Copyright
• Data Exclusivity
• EUIPO
• European Patent Office
• Trademark

From the AJG lexicon archive (July 2026).