A patent is a legal right granted by the government to the inventor of an invention, which allows that inventor to prevent others from using the invention (in other words, the patent owner has a monopoly over his invention). Specifically, for a limited amount of time (currently 14 or 20 years, depending on the type of patent), nobody can make, use or sell the invention without the patent holder’s permission. After that limited amount of time, the patent passes into the public domain.
But because an inventor gets this monopolizing right, he is required to fully disclose information about how to make and use the invention. The actual paper patent includes this information, and once it is issued, the patent is publicly available so that the public can access and learn from it.
A Patent is a type of copyright for inventors and very very few things that we do in design/art would fall into that category. So it is not really relevant to use like the other subjects are.
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