Patent Protection - What Is a Patent?

When a person or organization receives a patent, their design is made public. In return for publicly saying, this is how we do things, the patent holder gets exclusive rights to use that particular process in whatever way they want. The first director of the Nat Lab was a man named Jules Holst who did early research into superconductivity. He had worked with Madame Curie and he determined to give his researchers freedom to explore fundamental questions.