patent
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Of the roughly $700 billion in annual revenue generated by the world’s 14 largest drug companies, nearly half of it will face patent expiration by 2031, according to investment-bank Needham.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 13, 2026
In the denial, the patent commissioner scolded Hunt for allowing “his discovery to slumber” for so long, saying he submitted an application only to “strangle” someone else’s invention, presumably Howe’s.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 12, 2026
Adding insult to injury, to settle a debt, Hunt sold the 1849 patent rights for something that could have kept his legacy alive: the modern-day safety pin.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 12, 2026
While Walter Hunt’s daughter dissuaded her father from obtaining a sewing-machine patent, Elias Howe Jr.’s wife inspired her husband to get one.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 12, 2026
They were the same clothes the nurse in the first hospital had been packing into the patent leather case when I broke the mirror.
From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
Vocabulary lists containing patent
"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry
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The Ingenious Lexicon of Invention
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"Of Plymouth Plantation," Vocabulary from the historical account
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