The patent – after a long legal history which is linked, as might be expected, with the rise of technology and industry – has recently come to be subsumed under the term ‘intellectual property’ and is now closely related to forms of property ownership such as copyright and trade secrets, rather than its previous history of ‘warrant’ . It is a form of property which is much misunderstood both by the general public and also by many in the commercial and inventive communities to whom it is most directed. Many knowledgeable commentators reserve a measure of scepticism as to the utility of patents to inventors, a scepticism which is not to be found in other areas of intellectual property.
