STRAT 492 Legal & Intellectual Property Terms

Vocabulary practice flashcards generated from STRAT 492 legal and intellectual property notes.

Trade Secret Requirements

Information must have independent economic value because it is not generally known AND be subject to reasonable efforts to keep it secret.

Trade Secret Duration

Indefinitely, as long as it remains secret and reasonable secrecy measures continue.

Trade-Secret Misappropriation

Improper acquisition, use, or disclosure of a trade secret, such as theft, bribery, espionage, misrepresentation, or breach of confidence.

Arrow's Information Paradox

A situation where a seller cannot prove secret information's value without revealing it, but once revealed the buyer may no longer need to buy it.

Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA)

A law that allows trade-secret owners to bring certain trade-secret claims in federal district court.

UTSA

Uniform Trade Secrets Act; a state-law framework for trade-secret protection.

Waymo v. Uber

Case teaching that employee mobility is allowed, but confidential technical files/trade secrets cannot be taken or used improperly.

Utility Patent

Protects function—how an invention works, such as a product, process, machine, or composition of matter.

Design Patent

Protects the ornamental, nonfunctional appearance of an article of manufacture.

Plant Patent

Protects a new and distinct plant that is asexually reproduced.

Utility Patent Duration

Generally 20 years from the application filing date.

Design Patent Duration

Generally 15 years from issuance.

Core Utility Patent Requirements

Patentable subject matter, utility, novelty, and nonobviousness.

Patentable Subject Matter Exclusions

Abstract ideas, laws of nature, and natural phenomena.

Utility (Patent Law)

The invention must provide an identifiable, specific, substantial, presently meaningful benefit and cannot be inoperative.

Novelty

A patent requirement asking whether the claimed invention is actually new.

Prior Art

Earlier information—such as patents, publications, public use, sales, or disclosures—that can show an invention is not new or is obvious.

Nonobviousness

A requirement asking whether a person of ordinary skill would view the claimed invention as an obvious or predictable combination/development from prior art.

Patent Claims

The precise legal boundaries of what the patent protects.

Patent Disclosure Bargain

The inventor publicly explains how to make/use the invention; society gives limited exclusion rights in return.

Direct Patent Infringement

Making, using, selling, offering to sell, distributing, or importing a patented invention without permission; operates as strict liability.

Induced Infringement

Actively encouraging or causing another person to infringe a patent.

Contributory Infringement

Providing a component especially made for use in infringement, knowing it is for infringing use.

Patent Exhaustion

Defense stating that after an authorized sale, the patent owner's rights in that particular sold item are exhausted.

Myriad Genetics

Case teaching that naturally occurring DNA is not patent-eligible merely because it has been isolated; synthetic cDNA may be eligible.

Mayo v. Prometheus

Case teaching that a law of nature cannot become patentable just by adding routine or conventional steps.

Helsinn v. Teva

Case teaching that a confidential commercial sale can trigger the patent on-sale bar.

KSR v. Teleflex

Case teaching that combining known elements in a predictable way can be obvious; nonobviousness is evaluated flexibly.

Global-Tech v. SEB

Case teaching that willful blindness can satisfy the knowledge requirement for induced patent infringement.

Impression Products v. Lexmark

Case teaching that an authorized sale exhausts patent rights in that particular item.

In re Klopfenstein

Case teaching that a sufficiently public conference poster/display can be a printed publication and prior art.

Juicy Whip v. Orange Bang

Case teaching that the patent utility requirement has a relatively low threshold; increased salability may satisfy utility.

Apple v. Samsung

Case teaching the distinction between utility patents (function) and design patents (appearance), plus the strategic importance of IP enforcement.

Moderna v. Pfizer/BioNTech

Litigation involving whether Moderna's asserted patent claims were valid, where Moderna sought damages instead of an injunction for infringement after March 8, 2022.

Eureka Sunrise

A protected blueberry variety developed by Mountain Blue and licensed to Driscoll's in China for a period.

Substantive Law

Law that defines rights and liabilities—the WHAT of legal rights.

Procedural Law

Law that governs how rights are enforced—the HOW of the legal process.

Subject-Matter Jurisdiction

A court's authority to hear a particular type of case.

Personal Jurisdiction

A court's authority over the parties in a case.

Original Jurisdiction

Authority to hear a case first.

Appellate Jurisdiction

Authority to review a lower court's decision.

Motion for Summary Judgment

A request for the judge to decide the case because no genuine material factual dispute exists and only a legal question remains.

Deposition

Sworn out-of-court testimony taken during discovery.

Interrogatories

Written questions that a party must answer in discovery.

Arbitration vs. Mediation

Arbitration generally ends with a binding decision by a neutral; mediation helps parties negotiate but the mediator cannot impose a binding result.

Driscoll's Short-Answer Structure

FACT -> LAW/IP right -> APPLY to the facts -> BUSINESS EFFECT/strategy.