Patent refers to a grant of some privilege, property or authority to one or more individuals. In layman terms patents are granted to the inventor of an invention thus protecting the invention from being copied by someone else and thus giving exclusive rights to the inventor in dealing with his invention. Patent is granted by the controller to the inventor for a period of 20 years.

An invention is the creation of intellect applied to capital and labour, to produce something new and useful. On grant of patent, such invention becomes the exclusive property of the inventor (‘patentee’) meaning thereby, the patentee is entitled to deal with his such property in the same manner as owner of any other movable property deals with his property. He can,

»   sell the whole or part of his invention;

»   grant licence to other(s) to use the patented property;

»  assign the patented invention to other(s) for a consideration.

The Patent law recognises the exclusive right of a patentee to gain commercial advantage out of his invention. This is to encourage the inventors to invest their creative faculties, knowing that their inventions would be protected by law and no one else would be able to copy their inventions for certain period during which the respective inventor would have exclusive right over his invention.