Interference Proceeding - Parties

Parties

At least two parties are involved in an interference proceeding: the inventor(s) or applicant(s) who filed an earlier patent application are called the "senior party", and the other inventor(s) or applicant(s) are called the "junior party". Both parties can be referred as "contestants", but that term is currently more likely to be used to describe the junior party.

  • Senior party: Merely being the first to file the application does not grant a party legal protection. It counts only as prima facie evidence that he or she is the first inventor. A senior party can also file a "motion to dissolve interference" to request the dismissal of challenges to its priority.
  • Junior party: A party other than the senior party bears the burden of proving that he is the first inventor. The proceeding's administrator considers certain factors, such as the invention's conception date and the inventor's diligence in reducing the invention to practice. Until the 1960s, a junior party was frequently called an "interferant".

Read more about this topic:  Interference Proceeding

Famous quotes containing the word parties:

    “The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.”
    —Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

    “A foreign minister, I will maintain it, can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable man of pleasure too. Half his business is done by the help of his pleasures: his views are carried on, and perhaps best, and most unsuspectedly, at balls, suppers, assemblies, and parties of pleasure; by intrigues with women, and connections insensibly formed with men, at those unguarded hours of amusement.”
    —Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    “Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.”
    —George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)