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Deceased
Inventor:
a named inventor who has died prior to the filing of a patent
application or during the prosecution of a patent application. |
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Declaration:
Any document to be filed in the Patent and Trademark Office and which is
required by any law, rule, or other regulation to be under oath may be
subscribed to by a written declaration. Such declaration may be used in
lieu of the oath otherwise required, if, and only if, the declarant is
on the same document, warned that willful false statements and the like
are punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both and may jeopardize the
validity of the application or any patent issuing thereon. The declarant
must set forth in the body of the declaration that all statements made
of the declarant's own knowledge are true and that all statements made
on information and belief are believed to be true. |
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Defensive
Publication:
The Defensive Publication Program, which provided for the
publication of the abstract of the technical disclosure of a pending
application if the applicant waived his or her rights to an enforceable
patent, was available between April 1968 and May 8, 1985. The program
was ended in view of the applicant's ability to obtain a Statutory
Invention Registration. |
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Demand:
Form
PCT/IPEA/401, filed with
an International Preliminary Examining Authority, demanding that an
international application shall be the subject of an international
preliminary examination. |
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Dependent
Claim: A claim that refers back ("depends on")
to and further limits a preceding dependent or independent claim. A
dependent claim shall include every limitation of the claim from which
it depends. |
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Design
Patent:
May be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental
design for an article of manufacture. |
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Disclaimer:
A patentee, whether of the whole or any sectional interest therein, may,
on payment of the fee required by law, make disclaimer (give up all or
part of the owner's rights to enforce claims) of any complete claim ,
stating therein the extent of their interest in such patent. Such
disclaimers are required to be in writing and recorded in the USPTO, and
are considered as part of the original patent to the extent of the interest
actually possessed
by the disclaimant and by those claiming under him. Any patentee or
applicant may disclaim or dedicate to the public the entire term, or any
terminal part of the term (from a certain point in time through the
projected end of the entire term), of the patent granted or to be
granted. There are two types of disclaimers: (1) statutory disclaimer
and (2) terminal disclaimer. |
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Disclosure:
In return for a patent, the inventor gives as consideration a complete
revelation or disclosure of the invention which protection is sought. |
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Disclosure
Document:
A paper disclosing an invention (called a Disclosure Document) and
signed by the inventor or inventors that has been forwarded to the USPTO
by the inventor (or by any one of the inventors when there are joint
inventors), by the owner of the invention, or by the attorney or agent
of the inventor(s) or owner. The Disclosure Document will be retained
for two years, and then be destroyed unless it is referred to in a
separate letter in a related patent application filed within those two
years. |
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Divisional
Application:
A later application for an independent or distinct invention disclosing
and claiming (only a portion of and) only subject matter disclosed in
the earlier or parent application. |
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Doctrine
of Equivalents: In
patent infringement cases, the "doctrine of equivalents"
allows a patent owner to prove infringement even when the claims are not
literally infringed. |
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Double
Patenting: A
judicially created doctrine intended to prevent improper time wise
extension of a patent right by prohibiting the issuance of claims in a
second patent that are not "patentably distinct" from the
claims of a first patent. The doctrine prohibits claims in a second
patent that are merely an obvious variation of the claims of a first
patent. If the patent applicant cannot convince the patent examiner that
the claims of the second patent are not merely an obvious variation of
the earlier claims, the remedy is to file a Terminal Disclaimer. |
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Double
Patenting Rejection: A rejection of a patent claim on the
grounds that it is an improper attempt to obtain more than one patent on
the same invention or on an obvious variant of the same invention. |
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Drawing:
Patent drawings must show every feature of the invention as specified in
the claims. Omission of drawings may cause an application to be
considered incomplete but are only required if drawings are necessary
for the understanding of the subject matter sought to be patented. |
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