A patent is an official document issued by the Canadian Government giving the owner the right to exclude others from making, using, offering to sell or selling his or her invention in Canada for the life of the patent.  A patent provides protection for inventions. An invention is defined as "any new and useful art, process, machine, manufacture or corporation of matter, or any new and useful improvement in any art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter".  Patent Protection is only available in a registry system. Rights only arise on registration of the application for patent.

The life of a Canadian patent is typically twenty (20) years from the day that the application for the patent was filed.  Canada grants this exclusionary property right to encourage the public to fully disclose technical advances and improvements so that, through this disclosure, further technical innovation can be undertaken.  While developing new technological advances and obtaining Canadian patent rights can be costly, the expense is offset by the exclusionary rights granted by a patent that give the patent owner the opportunity to profit from the valuable and innovative work.