Parallel Imports
Parallel imports relate to products that have been made
and marketed by the patent owner in one country, which have subsequently been
imported by a third party into another country, without the patent owner's
consent.
Paris Convention
The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial
Property was established in 1883 and is generally referred to the Paris
Convention. The Paris Convention established the system of priority rights.
Under the priority rights, applicants have up to 12 months from first filing
their patent application (usually in their own country) in which to make
further applications in member countries and claim the original priority date.
It was originally signed by eleven countries; currently 173 countries are part
to the treaty (January 2005).
Patent
A patent is an intellectual property right issued by
authorized bodies to inventors to make use of, and exploit their inventions for
a limited period of time (generally 20 years). The patent holder has the legal
authority to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention (for a
limited time period). In return for the ownership rights, the applicant must
disclose the invention for which protection is sought. The trade-off between
the granting of monopoly rights for a limited period and full disclosure of
information is an important aspect of the patenting system.
Patentability
Patentability is the ability of an invention to satisfy
the legal requirements for obtaining a patent. The basic conditions of
patentability, which an application must meet before a patent is granted, are
that the invention must be novel, contain an inventive step (or be
non-obvious), be capable of industrial application and not be in certain
excluded fields (e.g. scientific theories and mathematical methods are not
regarded as inventions and cannot be patented at the EPO).
Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
As of July 2005, there were 128 countries party to this
treaty, which was signed in 1970 and entered into force in 1978. The PCT
provides the possibility to seek patent rights in a large number of countries
by filing a single international application (PCT application) with a single
patent office (receiving office). The PCT procedure consists of two main
phases: (a) an "international phase"; and (b) a PCT
"national/regional phase". PCT applications are administered by the
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
Prior art
Previously used or published technology that may be
referred to in a patent application or examination report, i.e. (a) in a broad
sense, technology that is relevant to an invention and was publicly available
(e.g. described in a publication or offered for sale) at the time an invention
was made; or (b) in a narrow sense, any such technology which would invalidate
a patent or limit its scope. The process of prosecuting a patent or
interpreting its claims largely consists of identifying relevant prior art and
distinguishing the claimed invention from that prior art. The objective of the
search process is to identify patent and non-patent documents constituting the
relevant prior art in order to determine whether the invention is novel and
includes an inventive step.
Priority country
Country where the patent is first filed before being
(possibly) extended to other countries.
Priority date
The priority date is the first date of filing of a
patent application, anywhere in the world (normally in the applicant’s domestic
patent office), to protect an invention. The priority date is used to determine
the novelty of the invention, which implies that it is an important concept in
patent procedures. For statistical purposes, the priority date is the closest
date to the date of invention.
Process Claim
A claim of a patent that covers the method by which an
invention is performed by defining the steps to be followed, in contrast to a
product claim or an apparatus claim, which covers the structure of a product.
Product-By-Process Claim
A patent claim in which a product is claimed by
defining the process by which it is made. The product-by-process form of claim
is most often used to define new chemical compounds, since many new chemicals,
drugs, and pharmaceuticals can practicably be defined only by describing the
process of making them.
Product Claim
A claim of a patent that covers the structure, apparatus,
or composition of a product, in contrast to a process claim, which covers a
method or process.
Publication date
The date on which the patent application is published
(i.e. the information is available to public). This normally occurs 18 months
after the priority date.
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Posted in: Glossary
