Improvement Patent: A patent claiming an invention that is an
improvement or modification of an invention claimed in a prior patent. In some
instances, it means a patent that cannot be practiced without infringement of a
prior patent.
Incorporation by Reference: To supplement the disclosure of a patent
application by making a specific statement in the application that other
material is to be considered to be incorporated in the application.
Indefiniteness of Claim: Section 112 of the Patent Statute requires
that the claims be sufficiently definite so as to provide a standard by which a
third party could, with some degree of certainty, determine whether a given
practice would or would not be an infringement of the claims.
Indemnity from Suit: A situation in which one party has agreed to sue
another party, e.g., for patent infringement.
Independent Claim: This is a claim that stands by itself and must be
so read in terms of infringement and validity evaluations. This is contrasted
with a dependent claim.
Inducement to Infringe: An act that encourages another party to
infringe a patent.
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS): A list of all patents,
publications and other information submitted by an applicant for patent to the
USPTO in discharging his duty of disclosure or to ensure that the Examiner
considers the information.
Infringed Literally: A situation wherein an issued patent is infringed
(practiced without a license to do so) by a product or process that has all of
features of the invention claimed in the patent.
Infringement by Equivalents: Infringement in the situation that the
infringing product or process does not have exactly the same features as the
invention claimed in the patent but that any different feature performs the
identical function specified for the claimed feature.
Infringement: Someone who makes, uses, sells, places on sale, or
imports into the United States a claimed invention is guilty of infringement.
There can be direct or literal infringement, infringement under the doctrine of
equivalents, contributory infringement, and active inducement to infringe.
Inherency: Present in the essential character of something.
Injunction: A writ granted by a court whereby one is required to do or
to refrain from doing a specified act.
Intellectual Property: An intangible form of personal property.
Patents, copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade names and trade secrets
are examples of intellectual property.
Interference: A multiparty priority proceeding in the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office wherein two or more parties claim the same invention. The
parties present evidence of conception and reduction to practice with a view
toward proving who first invented the subject matter of the claims involved in
the interference.
Intervening Rights: This is a defense to an allegation of
infringement. Intervening rights exist when a patent is later reissued with
broader claims because of inadvertent errors in claim instruction in the
original patent. Any person who practiced the broadened claims prior to the
reissue can continue. For such a person, infringement would result only if he or
she practiced the surviving, narrower claims.
Invalid: Ineffective or void under the law. A patent can be invalided
if it was issued in error.
Invention Disclosure: From a legal standpoint, a description of an
invention that would enable a person skilled in the art to which the invention
pertains to build and use the invention. Invention disclosure documents are used
for a variety of legal and commercial purposes.
Invention: In order to have a patentable invention, one must have a
development that is useful, novel and unobvious to one skilled in the art at the
time the invention was made, which is assumed to be the filing date of the
patent application.
Inventive Entity: This refers to the inventor or inventors named in a
patent application or patent.
Inventor, Joint: A person who collaborates with another inventor in
the conception of an invention.
Inventor: One who contributes to the conception and reduction to
practice of one or more of the claims in a patent application.
Issue Fee: The fee paid by an applicant a patent office prior to the
granting of a patent.
