What is a patent?

Answer:
A patent is a written document giving

a person or corporation specific rights to a product or service. These rights are prorpietary, meaning that nobody else can have them.

A patent is often acquired by corporations when they make products, as it keeps other corporations from stealing that idea and making the same product. An example of when a patent would be used is when writing a book. The author gets a patent on the book so that nobody else can copy the book and claim it as theirs.

A patent is a form of protection against plagiarism, and the word is often used interchangeably with copyright to indicate a written document stating that you are the only one who can make the product or perform the service. When people are prosecuted for plagiarism, it means they attempted to infringe on a patent or copyright.