A patent is a government grant to an inventor of the right to
exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention,
usually for a limited period. Patents are granted for new and
useful machines, manufactured products, and industrial processes
and for significant improvements of existing ones. Patents also
are granted for new chemical compounds, foods, and medicinal
products, as well as for the processes used to produce them. In
some countries patents can be granted even for new forms of
plant or animal life developed through genetic engineering. The
first recorded patent for an industrial invention was granted in
1421 in Florence to the architect and engineer Filippo
Brunelleschi. The patent gave him a three-year monopoly on the
manufacture of a barge with hoisting gear used to transport
marble. It appears that such privileged grants to inventors
spread from Italy to other European countries during the next
two centuries. In many cases governments issued grants for the
importation and establishment of n