Patent publication Patent application and granted patent are official documents. They are called patent publications. Patent applications and grant documents are archived by national and regional official databases. Starting from the publication date, they become publicly available.
Patent literature Together, patent publications form patent literature.
Patent family The applicant must file an individual patent application in the national or regional patent office in each country or region in which they wish to seek patent protection for the invention. Multiple applications and grant documents are thus issued for a single invention, and together they are called a patent family.
IPR Intellectual property rights. Patent is an immaterial right protecting the results of creative effort.
Prior art The level of existing known technology in a particular field of research; also state of the art (STOA). When suspecting a new invention, a prior art must always be made to discover possible similar solutions.
Patent landscape A graphic presentation of a prior art/state-of.the-art search, visualising who is patenting in a particular field of technology, and where.
