DataScience Blog The Hidden Insights of Patent Data

Patents are an interesting animal. Believe it or not, the number one reason why patent systems exist is to promote innovation and the sharing of ideas. To make it simple, a patent is really a trade. A government has the ability to give a limited monopoly to an inventor. In exchange for this exclusivity, the inventor provides a detailed description of their invention. The application for a patent needs to include enough detail about the technology that a peer in the field could pick it up and understand how to make or practice that invention. Then, this description gets published to the world so others can read and learn from it. That is the exchange. Disclose how your invention is made—in enough detail to replicate—and you can get a patent (assuming it is new, of course—which is another topic altogether).