Patent is a public concession, conferred by the state, which grants its holder the exclusivity by commercially exploiting its creation. The patent is part of the so-called intellectual property rights whose legal regulations are intellectual property law.
The right of exclusivity guaranteed by the patent refers to the right of prevention of others from manufacturing, using, selling, offering or importing said invention. In contrast, access to the public is made available on the knowledge of the essential points and claims which characterize the novelty in the invention. Patent registries, because they are available in free access databases, constitute great bases of technological knowledge, which can be used in research in several areas.
Patents influence competition because it forces each industry to launch more technological and better products, since they can not copy each other's products.