Letters patent are legal documents issued by governments to grant rights or privileges to individuals or groups. They can create new offices, grant monopolies, recognize military officers, and confer titles or honors. They can also recognize ownership of land.
Letters patent are a type of formal legal document issued by governments to grant a legal right, privilege, or status to a person or other entity or group. Letters patent are issued openly, making what is granted by the letter publicly visible. They are the opposite of closed letters, which are delivered to the recipient sealed. They are usually issued in the name of the head of state, such as the president in the United States of America or the king or queen in the United Kingdom, rather than the legislature.
Letters patent are frequently used in connection with government offices. For example, they are granted by the president of the United States for offices appointed by the president, such as federal judges. They can also be used to create new offices, such as letters patent issued by British monarchs establishing the office of governor-general for Commonwealth member nations such as Canada and Australia. Commissions, documents that recognize a person as a commissioned officer in a country’s military, are another example.
Letters patent can be used to grant various legal rights and privileges. Historically, they were often used to grant one person or group a monopoly over an area of economic activity, such as the sale of a certain commodity or trade with a specific region. From this derives the name of a patent, as the term is used today to indicate a legal recognition of intellectual property in an invention which grants a temporary monopoly on the invention. A letter of marque and author of retaliation authorizes a private citizen to enter the territory of a foreign country and wage war against it as a privateer.
Letters patent can also be used to grant titles and other honors. In the UK, for example, they are issued in the name of the sovereign when someone is raised to the nobility or granted a coat of arms. Patents have also been used to grant rights or privileges to groups, such as giving a city a coat of arms or recognizing the right of a religious minority to practice their religion.
A land patent granted by a government recognizes a person’s ownership of an area of land. In the British colonies in North America, for example, land was granted to colonists through land patents granted by an official called a landlord, who governed the colony in the name of the British crown. In the post-independence United States, the federal government began issuing land patents that grant public lands to private owners through land donations, sales, or ownership.
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