ABSTRACT
A patent is, in essence, the grant of a monopoly to an inventor who has used his skill to invent something novel. However, the monopoly is not absolute; patents are granted for only a limited time frame and are accompanied by public disclosure to enable others in the field to improve on the invention. Numerous processes and compositions involving lipid components have been patented extensively since the early 1900s. In this chapter, a review of the patent literature on lipid technology ranging from triacylglycerols (TAG) to ubiquinones in the past 5 yr is presented.
