patents

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of patent.

   The pharmaceutical firm defended its patents in three separate lawsuits.

   Universities increasingly file patents on the inventions their researchers develop.

   Note

   The plural counts grants and the documents behind them: a firm holds patents, files them, defends them, lets them lapse. Not every sense of patent goes into it. Patent leather is a mass noun, so shoes are made of patent, never of patents. In letters patent the plural sits on letters, and patent follows it. The same spelling also serves as the verb's present tense.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of patent.

   The inventor patents each improvement separately to strengthen her legal position.

   Whenever the firm patents a process, competitors scramble to find a workaround.

   Note

   The verb is transitive and takes its object directly: a company patents a process, a design, a drug. The figurative use keeps that shape. Someone who patents a style or a phrase is so closely tied to it that it seems theirs alone. In historical American usage the object could be land: a settler patents a tract, securing a formal grant of title to it.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2