What does it mean to infringe a Patent?
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What does it mean to infringe a Patent? Video Transcript
What does it mean to infringe a patent? What it means is that when someone is infringing a patent, they are actually infringing claims of the patent. The claims of the patent have elements. Each element of that claim someone else is doing in their product or service that is infringing. When someone is infringing, they are basically practicing each and every operation of a claim of the patent. If they are practicing three of the four things that the claim requires, they are not infringing. They have to be practicing each and every element of a claim. There are defenses to infringement. The defenses are usually, no, we are not infringing because we are doing something differently; we are only doing two of the five steps, or we are doing none of the five steps, or we are doing something entirely different. Or it could be invalidity; I am not going to talk about whether I am infringing or not because your patent is invalid. There is an argument some people can have depending on the kind of patent that there are issues with the prosecution of the patent, the inventor was not listed properly and therefore we believe your patent is invalid and an attempt could be made to invalidate the patent. Those are the two primary defenses. The main question here is what does it mean to infringe a patent. It means that there is an allegation that someone has potentially made that you are infringing on their limited monopoly right as is documented in their claims in the patent and your product or service is infringing each and every element of a particular claim.