Concept
This is a list of legal terms relating to patents and patent law. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention claimed therein, 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within the time period, the application may be considered, depending on the jurisdiction, as abandoned or deemed to be withdrawn, and, therefore, no longer pending.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 patent is "allowed" when the patent office examiners have determined that the patent application meets the necessary criteria of novelty, non-obviousness, feasibility, and usefulness. The applicants are notified of this certification, and that the patent office is ready to grant the patent once certain fees are paid and paperwork filed by the inventors or assignees. The term is used in the U.S. and some other countries. Few allowed patents are not subsequently granted. Maintenance fee (patent) A fee to be paid to maintain a patent or a patent application in force. Also called "maintenance fee" or "renewal fee". patent application 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. Arrow declaration A declaration sought from a court that a product to be launched was old or obvious at a particular date, so that the product cannot be affected by a later granted patent, which would also either lack novelty or inventive step. Assignor estoppel 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.