GLOSSARY
What is Patent Infringement?
Understanding patent infringement—direct and indirect infringement, defenses, and how AI helps assess risk.
Definition
Patent infringement occurs when someone makes, uses, sells, or imports a product or process that falls within the scope of a valid patent's claims without permission from the patent owner.
Types of Infringement
- Direct infringement: Performing all elements of a patent claim
- Indirect infringement: Inducing or contributing to someone else's direct infringement
- Literal infringement: Accused product exactly matches every claim element
- Doctrine of equivalents: Accused product performs substantially the same function in substantially the same way
- Willful infringement: Knowing about the patent and infringing anyway (can result in enhanced damages)
Common Defenses
- Non-infringement: The accused product doesn't meet all claim elements
- Invalidity: The patent should not have been granted (prior art exists)
- Exhaustion: Patent rights were exhausted by an authorized sale
- License: The accused party has a license
- Laches/estoppel: The patent owner waited too long to assert
How Analytics Helps
AI patent analytics helps with infringement analysis by:
- Identifying patents that may be relevant to your products
- Analyzing claim scope and potential overlap
- Finding prior art for invalidity defenses
- Monitoring assertion activity and litigation trends