The legal right of exclusive use and license granted by a government to the person who invents something. Pharmaceutical Patents nominally last for 20 years but the effective patent life is much lower because patents are typically granted years before a product has cleared review and been granted a license. Generally, in most jurisdictions, there are technically no differences between the legal requirements to obtain a patent for an invention in the pharmaceutical industry than there is in other fields.

See also:
License agreement
Trademark