Glossary of patent law terms

This is a list of legal terms relating to patents. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention, but a territorial right to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention, granted to an inventor or his successor in rights in exchange to a public disclosure of the invention.

The reply of an applicant to an office action must be made within a prescribed time limit. If no reply is received within the time period, the application may be considered, depending on the jurisdiction, as abandoned or deemed to be withdrawn, and, therefore, no longer pending.

A fee to be paid to maintain a patent or a patent application in force. Also called "maintenance fee" or "renewal fee".

An application for a patent, or patent application, is a request by a person or company to the competent authority (usually a patent office) to grant him a patent. By extension, a patent application also refers to the content of the document which that person or company filed to initiate the application process. This document usually contains a description of the invention and at least one claim used to define the sought scope of protection.

In United States patent law, an equitable estoppel barring a patent's seller (assignor) from attacking the patent's validity if he/she is found to have infringed that patent later.

In outdated German patent law, the second reading, or publication, of a patent application.

A form of inventor's recognition formerly available in the Soviet Union and a number of Socialist countries. Also called "inventor's certificate".

U.K. law concept according to which, if "the extent of the monopoly claimed [in a patent] exceeds the technical contribution to the art made by the invention as described in the specification", the patent may be revoked on the ground of insufficiency of disclosure. The concept stems from the decision Biogen v. Medeva, issued by the House of Lords on 31 October 1996.

See research exemption.

Under German patent law, a procedure consisting in deriving a utility model (German: Gebrauchsmuster) from a pending patent application. Also called "derivation".

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