Short answers, pulled from the story.
A patent is a legal right that gives its owner the power to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period, in exchange for publicly disclosing how the invention works. Under the TRIPS Agreement and the Paris Convention, the minimum term of protection is twenty years from the filing date.
Filippo Brunelleschi, a Florentine engineer and architect, received the first recorded industrial patent in 1421. The Venetian Senate granted him a three-year exclusive privilege for a method of transporting marble from quarries along the river Arno by barge.
The first US patent under the Patent Act of 1790 was granted on the 31st of July, 1790, to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a method of producing potash, also known as potassium carbonate. The Act itself was signed on the 10th of April, 1790.
As of 2015, only 8% of inventors in the UK were female. Researchers attribute the gap to historical legal barriers, such as married women being prohibited from owning property or income in the United States under the Patent Act of 1790, and to the underrepresentation of women in STEM sectors. Researchers including Marcowitz-Bitton and colleagues also argue that internal bias within the patent system itself contributes.
The GRATK Treaty, formally the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge, was adopted at a Diplomatic Conference in May 2024. It requires patent applicants to disclose when their inventions are based on genetic resources or traditional knowledge, and provides for revocation of patents filed without proper disclosure.
Inventors can use a defensive publication, which describes an invention publicly to establish prior art without claiming exclusivity, or a trade secret, which keeps information confidential indefinitely through non-disclosure agreements. Economist Joseph Stiglitz has proposed financial prizes as a substitute for patents, particularly for pharmaceutical innovation targeting diseases like AIDS.