First to File: Patents for Today's Scientist and Engineer

Glossary

All elements rule.

A rule for anticipation, stating that for a claim of a utility patent to be anticipated by the prior art, all of the elements in the claim must be disclosed or contained in a single item of prior art.

Anticipation.

The absence of novelty of an invention over the prior art and therefore grounds for rejecting a patent application or declaring a claim of a patent invalid. See “Novelty.”

Benefit of a filing date.

The attribute of a later-filed patent application enabling it to use the filing date of an earlier-filed patent application, rather than the actual filing date of the later-filed patent application, as a cutoff date for determining what qualifies as prior art against the later-filed patent application. The benefit of an earlier filing date thus enables a patent application (or patent) to eliminate certain materials from consideration as prior art.

Conception.

The formation of a complete idea of an invention in the mind of the inventor.

Continuation application.

A refiling of a patent application with a specification identical to that of, and claiming the benefit of the filing date of, the patent application before refiling.

Continuation-in-part application.

A refiling of a patent application in expanded form, either in the scope of its claims or in the content of the description in its specification, yet containing at least one claim that has full descriptive support in the specification as it existed prior to refiling. ...