Glossary of Patent Terms

Knowing the jargon used by the patent professionals will greatly enhance your abilities to find your way around. 

Patent Terms

Abstract of the Disclosure - A statement of the technical details describing what is new in the art which discloses what the invention claims.

ADS  - Acronym for Application Data Sheet.

Agent - Patent , practitioner or representative , one who is not an attorney but is authorized to act for or in place of the applicant.

AIPA - Acronym for American Inventors Protection Act of 1999

Assignment - A transfer of ownership of a patent application or patent from one entity to another.

BPAI - Acronym for Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences.

BPAIIS -  Acronym for Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences Information System.

Claims - Exactly what is claimed as the invention.

PAIR - Acronym for Patent Application Information Retrieval. A secure internet patent information retrival system. Use to check status of an application.

Patent - A property right granted by the United States to an inventor. “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States”.

Patent Attorney - An attorney licensed to practice in front of the Patent Board..

Patent Infringement - someone  making, using, offering to sell, selling or importing into the United States any patented invention, without permission. 

Patent Pending - Indicates a patent has been applied for, and offers the same basic protection as a patent. Once the patent is issued, the word pending is dropped, and a patent number is used. 

Prior Art - term for patent drawings 

Pro Se - an inventor who chooses to  the file the application without the use of a patent attorney.

Provisional Patent - It provides the means to establish an early effective filing date in a  Non Provisional Patent application. Automatically becomes abandoned after one year. It also allows the term Patent Pending to be applied.

USPTO - United states Patent and Trademark Office

 © Lee A. Jesberger - 2008