TERMS & DATES
§ 101
§ 112
§§102 and 103
EXCEPTIONS & DEFENSES
100
The standard term for a U.S. utility patent filed on or after June 8, 1995
What is 20 years from filing?
100
One of the three judicial exceptions to 35 U.S.C § 101 patent-eligible subject matter (along with laws of nature and natural phenomena)
What is an abstract idea?
100
The § 112(a) requirement that the specification teach a POSITA how to make and use the invention without undue experimentation.
What is enablement?
100
The term for a prior art reference that discloses every element of the claim under 35 U.S.C § 102.
What is anticipation?
100
The Section 102 exception created in the City of Elizabeth case, for a use / sale that was primarily to test the invention and necessary to prove feasibility.
What is the experimental use exception to anticipation?
200
The term for a U.S. design patent filed on and after May 13, 2015
What is 15 years from issuance?
200
In Funk Brothers, the discovery of non-cross-inhibitive bacteria useable together on leguminous plants was found to fit in this category of patent-ineligible subject matter under § 101
200
The § 112(a) requirement that the specification show the inventor possessed the full scope of the claimed invention at filing.
What is written description?
200
The category of prior art applicable to a thesis on file in a library and indexed in the card catalog, whether or not it has ever been checked out or read.
What is a printed publication?
200
Evidence of non-obviousness under § 103 in which the prior art actually discouraged the solution claimed.
What is teaching away?
300
The term for utility patents whose applications were filed before June 8, 1995
What is 17 years from issuance?
300
A type of method the Supreme Court held an unpatentable abstract idea under § 101 in the Bilski and Alice decisions.
What is a business method / fundamental economic practice (or process)?
300
The § 112(b) requirement that claims particularly point out and distinctly claim the invention.
What is definiteness?
300
The category of prior art triggered by a commercial offer for sale or actual sale of the invention at a time that it was ready for patenting, more than one year before filing.
What is the on-sale bar?
300
The common-law defense to infringement asserted when the patentee delayed unreasonably and prejudicially in bringing suit after affirmative interaction with an infringer.
What is the laches or equitable estoppel defense?
400
The term for a U.S. design patent filed before May 13, 2015
What is 14 years from issuance?
400
This patent validity issue arises from the language in Section 101 stating that an inventor of an invention can obtain "a patent therefor".
What is double patenting?
400
The § 112(a) requirement to disclose the inventor’s preferred embodiment (after the AIA, usable by Examiners, but can’t later be used to invalidate claims).
What is best mode?
400
The region in which an offer to sell or public use would create prior art, prior to the effective date of the AIA (March 16, 2013).
What is "this country" or the U.S.?
400
Section 286 of the Patent Act bars recovery for infringing acts more than this many years before filing suit.
What is six years / six year time limitation of damages?
500
The period in the U.S. Patent Law after certain disclosures by the inventor during which a patent application can still be filed
What is the One-Year "Grace" Period.
500
The modern requirement under § 101: the invention must have a specific and substantial real-world use
What is utility?
500
35 U.S.C § 112(f) claiming format that defines a claim element in terms of what it does rather than what it is.
What is means-plus-function claiming?
500
The region in which an offer to sell or public use would create prior art, after the passage of the AIA (March 16, 2013).
What is worldwide?
500
Doctrine under which a patentee’s authorized first sale cuts off further control over that item.
What is exhaustion or first sale?