Patent terms starting with D

31 terms

date of application The date upon which duly executed application papers are received in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
date of patent The effective date of the patent. It is the date of printing of notice of the patent grant in the Official Gazette of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
declaration a document in which an applicant for patent declares, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, or both (18 USC 1001), that (1) he or she is the original or…
Dedication An express or implied surrender to the public of an actual or potential patent right. MPEP 1490, MPEP 2138.03.
dedication to the public A document signed by a patent owner filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office giving up all patent rights.
Defensive Publication Publication of the abstract of the technical disclosure of a pending patent application if the applicant waived his or her rights to an enforceable patent.
Definiteness A characteristic of a patent claim in which claim language makes the scope of the claim clear to a person skilled in the art to which the invention…
dependent claim a claim that refers back to (depends on) and further limits a preceding dependent or independent claim.
Depositing Correspondence Filing written papers with a patent office. MPEP 502.
Deposition An oral statement made before an officer authorized by law to administer oaths.
design patent may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture -- see also patent
Diligence The activity required of an inventor and his attorney that must have started just prior to the entry into the field of another "inventor" and continue…
Direct Infringement Making, using or selling a patented invention in the jurisdiction within which the patent is enforcable, or importing a patented invention or a product…
disclaimer A patentee, whether of the whole or any sectional interest therein, may, on payment of the fee required by law, make disclaimer (give up all or part of…
disclosure A disclosure document explains how a financial product or offering works. It also details the terms to which you must agree in order to buy it or use it…
Disclosure Document Program A program of the USPTO wherein, for a small fee, the USPTO will maintain a written document disclosing an invention and signed by the inventor in…
Discovery This is when the Court orders each party (each side) to give each other information about the facts before the trial, to avoid surprise.
Disposal A term used in some countries, including the U.S., to mean that an application has been abandoned, denied (rejected) or allowed (granted).
Division Division means the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the U.S. Department of Labor.
divisional application a later application for an independent or distinct invention disclosing and claiming (only a portion of and) only subject matter disclosed in the earlier…
doctrine of claim differentiation This is a judicially created rule of construction that states that when two claims in the same patent have an apparently similar or identical meaning, an…
doctrine of equivalence invoked when a patent's claim is not literally infringed, but (here comes the is the legal jargon) "the infringing device uses substantially the same…
doctrine of equivalents a judicially created theory for finding patent infringement when the accused process or product falls outside the literal scope of the patent claims.
Dominated Covered by one or more claims in a patent.
Dominating Patent A patent having a claim broad enough to encompass the subject matter of a claim in a subsequent patent.
double patenting An inventive entity cannot obtain claims in two patents directed either to the same invention or to an obvious variation of the same invention.
Double Patenting Rejection A rejection of a patent claim on the grounds that it is an improper attempt to obtain more than one patent on the same invention or on an obvious variant…
DoublePatenting An improper attempt to obtain more than one patent on the same invention or on an obvious variant of the same invention. MPEP 804, MPEP 804.01, MPEP 804.
Drawing Patent drawings must show every feature of the invention as specified in the claims.
due diligence terms An investigation undertaken in the course of an intellectual property transaction to verify and determine the ownership and scope of intellectual property…
Duty of Disclosure everyone involved in the patent process at any time - both during the procurement period and during potential litigation or re-examination - must disclose…