License

Definition

Permission granted by a patent owner to another party to make, use, sell, or import a patented invention, typically in exchange for payment. Licenses can be exclusive (only one licensee) or non-exclusive (multiple licensees allowed). They can cover specific geographies, time periods, or fields of use. Unlike an assignment, a license does not transfer ownership of the patent.

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Patent Licensing

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Assignee

The legal owner of a patent, who may or may not be the inventor. When an employee invents something in the course of their employment, most companies require inventors to assign patent rights to the employer. The assignee appears on the patent document and has the right to license or enforce the patent.

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Patent

A government-granted right that gives an inventor the exclusive right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or importing a patented invention within the country that granted the patent, for a limited time. A patent does not give the owner the right to practice the invention — only the right to exclude others. The US issues three types: utility, design, and plant patents.

Literal infringement

Infringement where the accused product or process contains every single element of a claim exactly as written. If even one claimed element is missing there is no literal infringement, though the doctrine of equivalents may still apply.

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.

Appeal

A request to have a patent examiner's rejection reviewed by a higher authority. After receiving multiple rejections, an applicant can appeal to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) within the USPTO, and from there to federal court. Appeals are expensive and slow, but sometimes necessary when an examiner applies the law incorrectly.

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