What are the two types of Claims?
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What are the two types of Claims? Video Transcript
In this section I am going to talk about what are the elements of a claim. A claim is a single sentence. There are two kinds of claims: independent claims and dependent claims. Dependent claims take everything from the independent claims and incorporate them in to the dependent claim. So they are narrower than the independent claims. The independent claims are the broadest characterization of your invention. They are single sentences. They usually start with a capital letter and end with a period. There is a preamble which is the first part of the claim. The preamble is everything before a colon that exists right after the first line. Everything below it are elements of the claim. Each element is separated by a semicolon. There are three basic types of claims: method, apparatus and system claims. Claims are written from a particular perspective. There can be method claims which end in -ing, system claims which are multiple physical apparatus working together and an apparatus claim which is one physical object that has a bunch of internal parts that function together to perform some useful result. These are the three primary types of claims. There are other types of claims depending on the subject matter which is the composition of matter claims. There are claims related to other technologies and narrower variants, which is means for claims and method by process claims. But the primary three types are method, apparatus and system. The elements of the claim include the preamble, the body of the claim which is separated by semicolons and there are three basic types: method, apparatus and system.