Conception

Cross-referenced

Inventor

The person (or persons) who conceived the claimed invention. Inventorship is a legal concept distinct from contribution to a project — someone who merely built what was designed, or who had a general idea that was made more specific by someone else, may not qualify as an inventor. Incorrectly listing inventors can invalidate a patent.

Cross-referenced

Reduction to practice

Turning an idea into a working form: either by actually building and testing it (actual reduction to practice) or by filing a patent application that fully describes how to make and use it (constructive reduction to practice).

Claim differentiation

A canon of claim construction: different claims are presumed to have different scope, so a limitation spelled out in a dependent claim is presumed to be absent from the broader independent claim it depends on. It is used to argue an independent claim should be read broadly.

Claim

The numbered sentences at the end of a patent that define exactly what is legally protected. Claims are the only part of a patent that determine infringement — if a product or process doesn't fall within the scope of at least one claim, there is no infringement. Every other part of a patent (abstract, drawings, specification) exists to support and illuminate the claims.

Claim chart

A side-by-side comparison table mapping each element of a patent claim to a specific feature in an accused product or prior art reference. Claim charts are used in infringement analysis, licensing negotiations, and patent litigation. They make it visually clear which claim elements are met (or not met) by the thing being compared.

Claim construction

The legal process of interpreting what a patent claim means — specifically, the scope of each term in the claim. In litigation, judges perform claim construction in a "Markman hearing" before deciding infringement. Claim construction is often the most consequential step in patent litigation: a narrow construction can defeat infringement, while a broad one can invalidate the claim.