A provisional patent application, or PPA, is an application an inventor files before the formal patent claim is ready. A PPA allows the inventor to establish an early effective filing date in a later filed nonprovisional patent application.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or just PTO) is the federal agency responsible for granting U.S. patents and registering U.S. trademarks. The USPTO is the sole entity capable of granting patents and trademarks legally recognized in the United States.
The public domain includes every creative work that is no longer protected by a copyright, trademark, or patent. Creative works that are no longer protected are owned by the general public rather than the original creator. As such, the work is free to be copied, performed, or otherwise used by anyone.
To publish means to make a publication; to give publicity to a work; to make a work available to the public in physical or electronic form; to circulate or distribute a work to the general public.
In the context of defamation, even communicating a defamatory statement to a single third party may be considered publishing.
The term “published work” is often used in copyright law. For works created on or after January 1, 1978, under Title 17 of U.S. Code §101, both published and unpublished works are copyright-protectable. Published works refers to works that have “copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease or lodging” (Title 17 of U.S. Code §101).
A rejoinder is a legal response given by the defendant to the plaintiff’s response in the pretrial phase of a civil lawsuit.
Restriction is any limitation on activity, by statute, regulation, contract provision, or in a conveyance. However, individuals or entities seeking restrictions may be limited in what they can restrict.
Reverse engineering is the process of studying a product, device, software program, or other finished product to understand how it was designed, created, or operates. Reverse engineering can include taking apart a physical object, testing a product, analyzing code, algorithms, or the general behavior of a system. In legal disputes, the significance of reverse engineering usually depends on the context of how the item or information was obtained, what the person does with what is learned, and which area of law applies.
