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Swear Back Of A Reference
In United States patent law, "swearing back of a reference" is a process where an inventor (patent), inventor, in certain circumstances, can get a US patent even though the invention became public before the inventor filed an original patent application. This law has been substantially changed as of March 16, 2013, the effective date of the First to file and first to invent, first-to-file provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), although this procedure is still available in patent applications entitled to effective filing dates before this date. The pre-AIA law granted a one-year grace period from when the invention became known in certain ways to when an inventor had to file their patent application. If, in the course of patent application examination, a patent examiner cites a reference that predates the filing date of the patent application by less than a year, an inventor may still get a US patent if they can swear back of the publication date of the reference. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Patent Law
Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited time (usually, 20 years) from profiting of a patented technology without the consent of the patent-holder. Specifically, it is the right to exclude others from: making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, inducing others to infringe, applying for an FDA approval, and/or offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent. United States patent law is codified in Title 35 of the United States Code, and authorized by the U.S. Constitution, in Article One, section 8, clause 8, which states: Patent law is designed to encourage inventors to disclose their new technology to the world by offering the incentive of a limited-time monopoly on the technology. For U.S. utility patents, this limited-time term of patent i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inventor (patent)
In patent law, an inventor is the person, or persons in United States patent law, who contribute to the claim (patent), claims of a patentability, patentable invention. In some patent law frameworks, however, such as in the European Patent Convention (EPC) and its case law, no explicit, accurate definition of who exactly is an inventor is provided. The definition may slightly vary from one European country to another. Inventorship is generally not considered to be a patentability criterion under European patent law. Under U.S. case law, an inventor is the one with "intellectual domination" over the inventive process, and not merely one who assists in its reduction to practice. Since inventorship relates to the claims in a patent application, knowing who an inventor is under the patent law is sometimes difficult. In fact, inventorship can change during the Patent prosecution, prosecution of a patent application as claims are deleted or amended. "Joint inventors", or "co-inventors" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A patent is not the grant of a right to make or use or sell. It does not, directly or indirectly, imply any such right. It grants only the right to exclude others. The supposition that a right to make is created by the patent grant is obviously inconsistent with the established distinctions between generic and specific patents, and with the well-known fact that a very considerable portion of the patents granted are in a field covered by a former relatively generic or basic patent, are tributary to such earlier patent, and cannot be practiced unless by license thereunder." – ''Herman v. Youngstown Car Mfg. Co.'', 191 F. 579, 584–85, 112 CCA 185 (6th Cir. 1911) In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invention
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an idea is unique enough either as a stand alone invention or as a significant improvement over the work of others, it can be patented. A patent, if granted, gives the inventor a proprietary interest in the patent over a specific period of time, which can be licensed for financial gain. An inventor creates or discovers an invention. The word ''inventor'' comes from the Latin verb ''invenire'', ''invent-'', to find. Although inventing is closely associated with science and engineering, inventors are not necessarily engineers or scientists. Due to advances in artificial intelligence, the term "inventor" no longer exclusively applies to an occupation (see human computers). Some inventions can be patented. The system of patents was established ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent Application
A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and related correspondence. It is the combination of the document and its processing within the administrative and legal framework of the patent office. To obtain the grant of a patent, a person, either legal or natural, must file an application at a patent office with the jurisdiction to grant a patent in the geographic area over which coverage is required. This is often a national patent office, but may be a regional body, such as the European Patent Office. Once the patent specification complies with the laws of the office concerned, a patent may be granted for the invention described and claimed by the specification. The process of "negotiating" or "arguing" with a patent office for the grant of a patent, and interaction with a patent offic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First To File And First To Invent
First to file (FTF) and first to invent (FTI) are legal concepts that define who has the right to the grant of a patent for an invention. The first-to-file system is used in all countries. There is an important difference between the strict nature of the FTF under the European Patent Office, European Patent Office (EPO) and the FITF (First inventor to file) system of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The USPTO FITF system affords early disclosers some "grace" time before they need to file a patent, whereas the EPO does not recognise any grace period, so early disclosure under the FITF provisions is an absolute bar to later EPO patent. First to file In a first-to-file system, the right to the grant of a patent for a given invention lies with the first person to file a patent application for protection of that invention, regardless of the date of actual invention. First to disclose The concept of a grace period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent Examiner
A patent examiner (or, historically, a patent clerk) is an employee, usually a civil servant with a scientific or engineering background, working at a patent office. Major employers of patent examiners are the European Patent Office (EPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), and other patent offices around the world. Duties Patent examiners review patent applications to determine whether the invention(s) claimed in each of them should be granted a patent or whether the application should instead be refused. One of the most important tasks of a patent examiner is to review the disclosure in the application and to compare it to the prior art. This involves reading and understanding a patent application, searching the prior art (including prior patent applications and patents, scientific literature databases, etc.) to determine what contribution the invention makes over the prior art, and issuing office actions to explain to the applica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reduction To Practice
In United States patent law, the reduction to practice is the step in the formation of an invention beyond the conception thereof. Reduction to practice may be either actual (the invention is actually carried out and is found to work for its intended purpose) or constructive (a patent application having a sufficient disclosure is filed). The date of reduction to practice was critical to the determination of priority between inventors in an interference proceeding under the discontinued first-to-invent system as well as for swearing behind a reference under that system. Conception is the "formation in the mind of the inventor, of a definite and permanent idea of the complete and operative invention, as it is hereafter to be applied in practice." ''Hybritech Inc. v. Monoclonal Antibodies, Inc.'', 802 F.2d 1367, 1376 ( Fed. Cir. 1986) (quoting 1 Robinson ''On Patents'' 532 (1890). The reduction to practice of an invention can either be: * Actual reduction to practice: " quires tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Documentary Evidence
Documentary evidence is any evidence that is, or can be, introduced at a trial in the form of documents, as distinguished from oral testimony. Documentary evidence is most widely understood to refer to writings on paper (such as an invoice, a contract or a will), but the term can also apply to any media by which information can be preserved, such as photographs; a medium that needs a mechanical device to be viewed, such as a tape recording or film; and a printed form of digital evidence, such as emails or spreadsheets. Normally, before documentary evidence is admissible as evidence, it must be proved by other evidence from a witness that the document is genuine, called " laying a foundation". Documentary v. physical evidence A piece of evidence is ''not'' documentary evidence if it is presented for some purpose other than the examination of the contents of the document. For example, if a blood-spattered letter is introduced solely to show that the defendant stabbed the author of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inventor's Notebook
An inventor's notebook is used by inventors, scientists and engineers to record their ideas, invention process, experimental tests and results and observations. It is not a legal document but is valuable, if properly organized and maintained, since it can help establish dates of conception and reduction to practice. It may be considered as grey literature. The information can improve the outcome of a patent or a patent contestation. Purpose A patent grants its owner(s) the right to sue those who manufacture and market products or services that infringe on the claims declared in the patent. Typically, governments award patents on either a ''first to file'' or ''first to invent'' basis. Therefore, it is important to keep and maintain records that help establish who is first to invent a particular invention. The inventor's notebook (also called a journal, lab book or log book) is a systematic device for recording all information related to an invention in such a way that it can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
