A patent is a form of intellectual property. A patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, and importing an invention for a limited period of time, usually twenty years. The patent rights are granted in exchange for an enabling public disclosure of the invention. In most countries patent rights fall under civil law and the patent holder needs to sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce his or her rights. In some industries patents are an essential form of competitive advantage; in others they are irrelevant.
Sir Henry Bessemer was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century for almost one hundred years from 1856 to 1950. He also played a significant role in establishing the town of Sheffield as a major industrial centre.
The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of highly significant technology. Founded in 1973, its primary mission is to "honor the people responsible for the great technological advances that make human, social and economic progress possible." Besides the Hall of Fame, it also operates a museum in Alexandria, Virginia, and a former middle school in Akron, Ohio, and sponsors educational programs, a collegiate competition, and special projects all over the United States to encourage creativity among students.
An industrial design right is an intellectual property right that protects the visual design of objects that are not purely utilitarian. An industrial design consists of the creation of a shape, configuration or composition of pattern or color, or combination of pattern and color in three-dimensional form containing aesthetic value. An industrial design can be a two- or three-dimensional pattern used to produce a product, industrial commodity or handicraft.
Jerome "Jerry" Hal Lemelson was an American engineer, inventor, and patent holder. Several of his inventions and works in the fields in which he patented have made possible, either wholly or in part, innovations like automated warehouses, industrial robots, cordless telephones, fax machines, videocassette recorders, camcorders, and the magnetic tape drive used in Sony's Walkman tape players. Lemelson's 605 patents made him one of the most prolific inventors in American history.
Prior art, in most systems of patent law, is constituted by all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. If an invention has been described in the prior art or would have been obvious over what has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid.
Patent infringement is the commission of a prohibited act with respect to a patented invention without permission from the patent holder. Permission may typically be granted in the form of a license. The definition of patent infringement may vary by jurisdiction, but it typically includes using or selling the patented invention. In many countries, a use is required to be commercial to constitute patent infringement.
Hidetsugu Yagi was a Japanese electrical engineer from Osaka, Japan. When working at Tohoku University, he wrote several articles that introduced a new antenna designed by his colleague Shintaro Uda to the English-speaking world.
Within the context of a national or multilateral body of law, an invention is patentable if it meets the relevant legal conditions to be granted a patent. By extension, patentability also refers to the substantive conditions that must be met for a patent to be held valid.
Industrial property is one of two subsets of intellectual property, it takes a range of forms, including patents for inventions, industrial designs, trademarks, service marks, layout-designs of integrated circuits, commercial names and designations, geographical indications and protection against unfair competition. In some cases, aspects of an intellectual creation, although present, are less clearly defined. The object of industrial property consists of signs conveying information, in particular to consumers, regarding products and services offered on the market. Protection is directed against unauthorized use of such signs that could mislead consumers, and against misleading practices in general.
The history of patents and patent law is generally considered to have started with the Venetian Statute of 1474.
Japanese patent law is based on the first-to-file principle and is mainly given force by the Patent Act of Japan. Article 2 defines an invention as "the highly advanced creation of technical ideas utilizing the law of nature".
This is a list of legal terms relating to patents. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention, but a territorial right to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention, granted to an inventor or his successor in rights in exchange to a public disclosure of the invention.
Inventions and Their Management is a science book by Alf K. Berle and L. Sprague de Camp. It was based on A Course on Inventing and Patenting by Howard Wilcox and Alf K. Berle, a series of nine papers presented by New York University in cooperation with Inventors Foundation, Inc., issued from 1933-1934. The Berle/de Camp version was published by the International Textbook Company in July 1937. It was reprinted, revised, in September 1940. A second edition was issued by the same publisher in April 1947 and was reprinted, revised, in January 1948, with a third printing in June 1948 and a fourth in June 1950. A third edition was issued by the same publisher in November 1951 and was reprinted, revised, in 1954. An additional printing was issued by Laurel Publishing in 1957. The work was revised and reissued under the new title Inventions, Patents, and Their Management by Van Nostrand in 1959. It was reprinted by Litton Educational publishers in 1968. The work has been translated into Japanese.
Shintaro Uda was a Japanese inventor, and assistant professor to Hidetsugu Yagi at Tohoku University, where together they invented the Yagi-Uda antenna in 1926.
Nobuchika "Shinkin" Sugimura was a Japanese inventor and patent attorney. He was the first chairman of the Japan Patent Attorneys Association.
Sugimura & Partners formerly known as Sugimura International Patent and Trademark Attorneys is an intellectual property law firm based in Japan. The firm has an international presence, representing clients from around the world. The firm represents more than 200 clients ranging from single inventors and start-ups to academic institutions and international corporations. Approximately half of Sugimura's client base consists of Japanese businesses and organisations, while the other half is foreign counterparts. It has a global legal network in over 40 countries.
Julius Kahn was an engineer, industrialist, and manufacturer. He was the inventor of the Kahn System, a reinforced concrete engineering technique for building construction. The Kahn System that he patented in 1903 was used worldwide for housing, factories, office and industrial buildings. His system was used in 134 US cities by 1939. His engineering system for building construction was also found then in Africa, Europe, Canada, China, Brazil, and Mexico. In Yokohama, Japan, his system was used in an automobile factory. His unique engineering system of construction was used also in airplane plants, warehouses, docks, foundries, creameries, filtration plants, rubber factories, steel plants, silos, distilleries, smelters, and textile mills.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to patents:
