The word "patents" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to exclusive legal rights to an invention or discovery. Example sentence: "The company applied for patents on its latest inventions."
Staff and patents leaving the hospital appeared surprised at the news that an incident had been declared.
"He was a mythical figure in my childhood... and his many musical scores, essays and patents in addition to his prolific artistic output attest to his many talents," she said.
The wonder material graphene – a lightweight conductor 200 times stronger than steel – was discovered by scientists in Manchester, and yet the thousand-plus registered patents harnessing it in China, America and South Korea are matched by only a few dozen in Britain.
Following years of copyright rows and royalty disputes, Hon's patents were sold to Imperial Tobacco in 2013 for $75m.
For years, handset makers have licensed patents to each other so they can make interoperable products.
Kwolek worked for 40 years at DuPont, filing some 28 patents.
Jun recently boasted about the number of patents filed by Xiaomi around its smartphones, displaying patents awarded for the camera on its new Mi Note phablet during its announcement presentation last month.
But Guy Burkill at Three New Square, one of the UK's leading patent barristers who specialises in telecoms-related patents, says that with worldwide sales of mobiles passing 1bn units a year, "the stakes are enormous – fractions of a penny per handset are worth fighting over".
The argument is mind-bending – as with most patents rows – but could lead to Google or handset makers (or both) being forced to pay Oracle a fee for every Android handset sold, which would be a serious problem as the platform has begun to take off in the US and worldwide.
Climate scientists dismiss such theories and evidence such as the long list of patents for climate-altering tools tends to demonstrate the boundless scope of the human imagination rather than the more limited reach of operational technology.
Indian customs have been ordered to block the import of smartphones or other devices that potentially infringe on Ericsson patents until further notice.
