A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention.
Each country governs its own patent procedures. In Australia, the body responsible for administering patents is IP Australia. A list of international ofiices is provided by WIPO. WIPO's Patentscope can help you to search for patents across multiple languages.
Each patent goes through an application process prior to being granted. When you search for patents, you may find:
The Lens is a worldwide, open-access, free full-text patent informatics resource. Search and retrieve the full-text of more than 80 million patent documents from US, Europe, Australia and WIPO, their status and counterparts up to 90 countries.
You can try a quick search, advanced search or search for citations within patent literature using the PatCite tool.
