A treaty is an international law agreement between organizations of state, including sovereign states.
Classifications of treaties are organized by the subjects with which they deal with. For example, political treaties are in relation to wars and boundaries, Legal Treaties include the extradition of criminals, copyrights, and patents.
Treaties are confined to only high priority and important formal agreements. The less formal accords are called, conventions, acts, declarations and protocols.
Greeks and Romans have elaborate ceremonials to emphasize the sanctity of Treaties
CERN released the World Wide Web software into the public domain in 1993, and Tim Berners-Lee chose not to patent it, which helped the web spread worldwide.
In 2001, an Australian lawyer named John Keogh received a patent for a "circular transportation facilitation device," basically the wheel, to show flaws in Australia's patent system.
Inventor Elisha Gray filed paperwork for a similar telephone design at the patent office on the same day as Alexander Graham Bell, which led to years of legal fights.
According to a popular story, Western Union turned down a chance to buy Alexander Graham Bell's telephone patent for $100,000, one of the worst business decisions in history.
Guglielmo Marconi is usually credited with inventing the radio, but a 1943 US Supreme Court decision invalidated key parts of his patent, recognizing earlier work by others including Nikola Tesla.