A patent is a title by virtue of which the owner is granted preserving the life long history and her
A patent is a title by virtue of which the owner is granted a temporary monopoly of exploitation of an invention, for a limited period of time, consisting of the exclusive right to make it, dispose of it and make commercial use of it, prohibiting such activities to other unauthorized subjects. A patent does not grant the owner an authorization to freely use the invention covered by the patent, but
only the right to exclude others from using it. The exclusive right conferred by the patent is effective only within the state that issued it (principle of territoriality). Only technological innovations with industrial application, which are presented as new, original and concrete solutions to a technical problem, can be patented.As an alternative to patenting, a company wishing to protect its invention may
place it in the public domain, through a "defensive" publication, thus ensuring that no one else can patent it
keep the invention secret, resorting to industrial secrecy, governed by art. 98 of the IPC, on the basis of which company information and technical-industrial experience, including commercial experience, subject to the legitimate control of the holder, are protected. The first patent in history dates back to ancient Greece and more precisely in the city of Sybaris, where new inventions were encouraged by guaranteeing one year of the profits due to them to their discoverer; the patent was thus born as an archaic solution to a technical problem (producing inventions) susceptible of "industrial application". In Italy the first patent dates back to 1421 when the Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi received a patent for 3 years for the invention of a barge called Badalone[3] with lifting means, which transported marble along the Arno River for the construction of the Florence Cathedral and in 1449, in England, King Henry VI of England granted the first English patent, with a license of 20 years, to John of Utynam for the production of stained glass[5]. The first European patent legislation is contained in a portion of the Venetian Senate of March 19, 1474 (Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Senato terra, registro 7, carta 32):3
"L'andarà parte che per auctorità de questo Conseio, chadaun che farà in questa Cità algun nuovo et ingegnoso artificio, non facto per avanti nel dominio nostro, reducto chel sarà a perfection, siche el se possi usar, et exercitar, sia tegnudo darlo in nota al officio di nostri provveditori de Comun. Siando prohibito a chadaun altro in alguna terra e luogo nostro, far algun altro artificio, ad immagine et similitudine di quello, senza consentimento et licentia del auctor, fino ad anni 9." After Italy also in England, following the Statute of Monopolies of 1623-1624 under the reign of James I of England, patents were granted for "projects of new invention", through "patents", "open letters" in Italian, from the Latin "litterae patentes". Open letters were granted by the king, for a period of fourteen years, and gave exclusivity to those who received them to import and distribute a certain product. During the reign of Queen Anne of Great Britain (1702-1714), a law obliged whoever claimed exclusivity on a product to enclose with the request a written description of the invention.
