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Infringement

Definition

The unauthorized making, using, selling, or importing of a product or process that falls within the scope of a valid patent's claimsclaimsThe numbered statements at the end of a patent that legally define what the inventor owns.Read more →. InfringementinfringementMaking, using, selling, or importing a patented invention without permission from the patent holder.Read more → is determined by comparing each element of a patent claimclaimA numbered sentence at the end of a patent that legally defines what the inventor owns. The most important section.Read more → to the accused product or process. If every element is present — literally or under the doctrine of equivalentsdoctrine of equivalentsExtends infringement beyond the literal claim language — if a competitor's product does substantially the same thing in substantially the same way, it can still infringe.Read more → — infringement exists.

Related terms

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Independent claim

A claim that stands on its own and does not reference any other claim. An independent claim defines the broadest scope of protection for a particular aspect of an invention. Most patents have one to three independent claims, each capturing the invention from a different angle, with multiple dependent claims narrowing each one.

Intellectual property (IP)

The legal category covering intangible creations of the mind that receive some form of legal protection. The four main types are patents (inventions), copyright (creative works), trademarks (brand identifiers), and trade secrets (confidential business information). Each type has different rules, durations, and protections — and they can overlap on the same product.

Inter partes review (IPR)

An administrative proceeding at the PTAB that allows any person to challenge the validity of an already-granted patent based on prior art in patents or printed publications. IPR is significantly faster and cheaper than district court litigation. Roughly 60% of patent claims that reach a final decision in IPR are canceled. Large companies frequently use IPR to challenge startup patents without going to court.

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.

Abstract

A brief summary (300 words or fewer) that appears at the top of every patent. The abstract describes what the invention does in general terms. Legally, it has almost no weight — courts use the claims to determine what a patent covers, not the abstract. The abstract is useful mainly for quickly scanning patents during a prior art search.

Anticipation

A legal standard for rejecting a patent claim. If every element of a claim was already disclosed in a single prior art reference — in a patent, article, or product — the claim is "anticipated" and cannot be patented. Anticipation requires a single source to contain every element; if you need two sources, it's an obviousness argument, not anticipation.

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