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A patent ( or ) is a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention. An invention is a solution to a specific technological problem and is a product or a process.〔(WIPO Intellectual Property Handbook: Policy, Law and Use. Chapter 2: Fields of Intellectual Property Protection ) WIPO 2008〕 Patents are a form of intellectual property. The procedure for granting patents, requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a granted patent application must include one or more claims that define the invention. A patent may include many claims, each of which defines a specific property right. These claims must meet relevant patentability requirements, such as novelty, usefulness, and non-obviousness. The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent others, or at least to try to prevent others, from commercially making, using, selling, importing, or distributing a patented invention without permission.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Patents: Frequently Asked Questions )〕 Under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, patents should be available in WTO member states for any invention, in all fields of technology,〔Article 27.1. of the TRIPs Agreement.〕 and the term of protection available should be a minimum of twenty years.〔 Nevertheless, there are variations on what is patentable subject matter from country to country. ==Definition== The word ''patent'' originates from the Latin ''patere'', which means "to lay open" (i.e., to make available for public inspection). More directly, it is a shortened version of the term ''letters patent'', which was a royal decree granting exclusive rights to a person, predating the modern patent system. Similar grants included land patents, which were land grants by early state governments in the USA, and printing patents, a precursor of modern copyright. In modern usage, the term ''patent'' usually refers to the right granted to anyone who invents any new, useful, and non-obvious process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter. Some other types of intellectual property rights are also called ''patents'' in some jurisdictions: industrial design rights are called ''design patents'' in the US, plant breeders' rights are sometimes called ''plant patents'',〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=General Information About 35 U.S.C. 161 Plant Patents )〕 and utility models and ''Gebrauchsmuster'' are sometimes called ''petty patents'' or ''innovation patents''. The additional qualification ''utility patent'' is sometimes used (primarily in the US) to distinguish the primary meaning from these other types of patents. Particular species of patents for inventions include biological patents, business method patents, chemical patents and software patents. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Patent」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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