''Inter partes'', Latin for "between the parties",Duhaime Legal Dictionary
Accessed July 3, 2008. is a law term that can be distinguished from in rem, which refers to a legal action whose jurisdiction is based on the control of property, or ex parte, which refers to a legal action that is by a single party.

Lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

s (or actions in executive agencies) in which all interested parties have been served with adequate notices and are given a reasonable opportunity to attend and to be heard are referred to as ''inter partes'' proceedings or hearings. When a judgment is given, subject to any right of appeal, it would be inconvenient if the same issues could be endlessly relitigated by the same parties and so they are all bound by the result. However, anyone who was not a party to those proceedings and can demonstrate a legitimate interest in reopening the issue is entitled to petition the

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and carry out the administration of justice in Civil law (common law), civil, C ...

for the right to be heard. However, in some circumstances, the judgment is given ''in rem'' and so binds everyone, whether a party to the case or not.

Contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to ...

s can also be said to be ''inter partes'' and various laws can be relied upon to create and vest rights that exist only on an ''inter partes'' basis; they do not attach as an attribute to a person's

status Status (Latin plural: ''statūs''), is a state, condition, or situation, and may refer to: * Status (law) ** City status ** Legal status, in law ** Political status, in international law ** Small entity status, in patent law ** Status conference ...

and so become ''in rem'' rights.

Examples

Opposition procedure before the European Patent Office The opposition procedure before the European Patent Office (EPO) is a post-grant, contentious, '' inter partes'', administrative procedure intended to allow any European patent to be centrally opposed. European patents granted by the EPO under th ...

Interference proceeding An interference proceeding, also known as a priority contest, is an inter partes proceeding to determine the priority issues of multiple patent applications. It is a proceeding unique to the patent law of the United States. Unlike in most other co ...

(US patent law) * ''Inter partes'' reexamination in US patent law * Inter partes review (U.S. patent law) *

Trademark Trial and Appeal Board The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) is an administrative tribunal within the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The TTAB is empowered to determine the right to register a trademark. It has no authority to determine the righ ...

Petitions

References

Latin legal terminology {{Latin-legal-phrase-stub

Examples

See also

References