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Patent   /pˈætənt/   Listen
noun
Patent  n.  
1.
A letter patent, or letters patent; an official document, issued by a sovereign power, conferring a right or privilege on some person or party. Specifically:
(a)
A writing securing to an invention.
(b)
A document making a grant and conveyance of public lands. "Four other gentlemen of quality remained mentioned in that patent." Note: In the United States, by the act of 1870, patents for inventions are issued for seventeen years, without the privilege of renewal except by act of Congress.
2.
The right or privilege conferred by such a document; hence, figuratively, a right, privilege, or license of the nature of a patent. "If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to offend."



verb
Patent  v. t.  (past & past part. patented; pres. part. patenting)  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.



adjective
Patent  adj.  
1.
Open; expanded; evident; apparent; unconcealed; manifest; public; conspicuous. "He had received instructions, both patent and secret."
2.
Open to public perusal; said of a document conferring some right or privilege; as, letters patent. See Letters patent, under 3d Letter.
3.
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. "Madder... in King Charles the First's time, was made a patent commodity."
4.
(Bot.) Spreading; forming a nearly right angle with the steam or branch; as, a patent leaf.
Patent leather, a varnished or lacquered leather, used for boots and shoes, and in carriage and harness work.
Patent office, a government bureau for the examination of inventions and the granting of patents.
Patent right.
(a)
The exclusive right to an invention, and the control of its manufacture.
(b)
(Law) The right, granted by the sovereign, of exclusive control of some business of manufacture, or of the sale of certain articles, or of certain offices or prerogatives.
Patent rolls, the registers, or records, of patents.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Patent" Quotes from Famous Books



... trace of the religious instinct, his sympathy was nil, and his conquests were made possible only because he was blind to the suffering and misery his greed for glory and dominion generated. Post-pituitary insufficients of this type, patent or concealed, gradually become corpulent as they grow older. The increasing corpulency of Napoleon was commented ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... self-regarding praise is perhaps inevitable, as being the product of the meditative spirit which has its birth, and lives in the land of the twilight; but the advantages of the objectiveness of Greek hymnody are so patent, that its cultivation might be fostered by our hymn-writers, with advantage to the devotional feeling of our people and to ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie

... of more than academic importance to know whether gentlemen were to be unceremoniously turned out of their offices. As far back as 1738, while still a lad, he had himself been appointed to be Usher of the Exchequer; and as soon as he came of age, he says, "I took possession of two other little patent places in the Exchequer, called Comptroller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats"—all these places having been procured for him through the generosity of his father. The duties of these offices, one may suppose, were not arduous, for it seems that they ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... among reformers. Emulating the magnificent efforts of Anthony Comstock, after whom his grandson was named, he levelled a varied assortment of uppercuts and body-blows at liquor, literature, vice, art, patent medicines, and Sunday theatres. His mind, under the influence of that insidious mildew which eventually forms on all but the few, gave itself up furiously to every indignation of the age. From an armchair in the office of his Tarrytown estate he directed against the enormous hypothetical enemy, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... end of a thin tube, the stroke may be made in any direction, a most unique characteristic in a pen. It has, however, the disadvantages of being friable and expensive; and, as it needs to be kept clean, the patent water-proof ink should not be used with it unless absolutely necessary. A flat piece of cork or rubber should be placed inside the ink-bottle when this pen is used, otherwise it is liable to be smashed by striking the bottom of the bottle. The faculty possessed ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis


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