Second, it refers to inventions protected by the patent law, that is, patented technology, which is a proprietary technology recognized by the state and protected by law on the basis of publicity. The "patent" here refers to technical methods-technologies or schemes protected by national laws. The so-called proprietary technology is the technology with exclusive rights, which is a bigger concept, including patented technology and technical secrets. Some professional technologies that do not belong to patents and technical secrets are meaningful only in some technical service contracts. A patent is an invention protected by legal norms. It is an invention that submits a patent application to the national examination and approval authority, and after passing the examination according to law, the patent applicant is granted the exclusive right to the invention within the time specified by the country, and the annual fee needs to be paid regularly to maintain the protection status in the country.
Third, it refers to the patent certificate issued by the Patent Office to confirm that the applicant enjoys the patent right for his invention-creation, or refers to the patent document that records the content of the invention-creation, and refers to the specific material document. Here, although the first two meanings of patent are different, they are all intangible, and the third meaning refers to tangible matter. The word "patent" can refer to only one of the meanings, or it can contain more than two meanings, and the specific situation must be viewed in context. Regarding the concept of "patent", people generally think that it is a document issued by a patent institution according to an invention application, which describes the content of the invention and creates a legal state, that is, a patented invention can only be used (including manufacturing, use, sales and import, etc.). ) with the permission of the patentee.