美国专利法理解.doc

A Abandonment (of a patent application) – stopping the prosecution process; can be implicit (failure to reply to an office action or pay a prescribed fee within the time period allowed) or explicit (PTO is informed by the applicant or his agent that further prosecution will not be pursued). Application (patent application) – formal documents filed requesting the grant of a patent. Back to Top B Back to Top C Claim – a statement by the patent applicant describing the heart of the invention; subject matter protected by a patent. Conception (invention conception) – creation in the inventor’s mind of a useful way to solve a problem; act of visualizing an invention, complete in all essential detail; occurs when a solution is formulated, not when the underlying problem is recognized. Confidentiality Agreement – a legal document through which intellectual property can be disclosed by one party to another to be used only for stated purposes, not to be disclosed to others, and returned to the giver upon request. Continuation Application (also called a file wrapper continuation application) – an application filed after the final office action on an earlier filed application that consists of the same disclosure; the claims may be the same or there may be a new set of claims directed to the same invention claimed in the prior application; continuation applications must be filed before the earlier application is abandoned and must contain no new matter; a continuation application has the same filing date as the earlier (parent) filed application. Continuation in Part Application (CIP) – an application filed before the earlier filed application is abandoned that adds new material to or deletes material from the earlier filed application; material in common with the earlier application has the original application’s filing date, new material has the filing date of the CIP. Copyright – a type of intellectual property protection that protects the manner in which an idea is expre