The Everyday Dictionary of Law

WIPO Copyright Treaty.

Windows Internet Naming Service.

World Intellectual Property Organization. A self-funded UN agency with 189 member states, it provides a global forum for intellectual property services, policy, information and cooperation.

The WIPO Copyright Treaty concluded at Geneva, Switzerland, on December 20, 1996.

A multilingual terminology portal giving access to scientific and technical terms derived from patent documents

The WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty concluded at Geneva, Switzerland, on December 20, 1996.

Documentation programs can raise intellectual property questions for holders of traditional knowledge. Conscious consideration of intellectual property implications is particularly important during the documentation process. The WIPO Traditional Knowledge Documentation Toolkit focuses on management of intellectual property concerns during the documentation process, and also takes the documentation process as a starting point for a more beneficial management of traditional knowledge as a community’s intellectual and cultural asset.
The WIPO Traditional Knowledge Documentation Toolkit is especially designed to be used by indigenous peoples and local communities. Others might also find it useful, such as public officials from IP offices, policy makers in general, research and cultural institutions undertaking documentation projects, among others.

The Model Provisions were adopted in 1982 by a Committee of Governmental Experts convened jointly by WIPO and United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO). The provisions provide a sui generis model for intellectual property-type protection of traditional cultural expressions/expressions of folklore, which has been fairly widely used by WIPO Member States.
The Model Provisions seek to maintain a balance between the protection against abuses of expressions of folklore, on the one hand, and the freedom and encouragement of further development and dissemination of folklore, on the other. They take into account the fact that expressions of folklore form a living body of human culture, which should not be stifled by too rigid protection.
Under the Model Provisions, traditional cultural expressions/expressions of folklore are protected against “illicit exploitation and other prejudicial actions.” In 2000 and 2001, WIPO surveyed States’ experiences with use and implementation of the Model Provisions. A report is available as a WIPO document WIPO/GRTKF/IC/3/10.

WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

World Trade Organization. A multinational organization that presides over the rules of trade between nations. In terms of intellectual property, it was the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) that introduced rules governing intellectual property into the global trading framework for the first time.

The terms “WTO Agreement” and “WTO member country” have the meanings given those terms in paragraphs (9) and (10), respectively, of section 2 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act.

The author's “widow” or “widower” is the author's surviving spouse under the law of the author's domicile at the time of his or her death, whether or not the spouse has later remarried.

When an invention is copied, or continues to be copied after its protected status is already known or made known to the person who is infringing. This can lead to much higher penalties if brought to court. In the US, damages awarded can be up to three times higher, an outcome that is often referred to as triple damages.

Time period after which a utility patent (that issues from an application filed on or after 12 December 1980) expires if a maintenance fee has not been paid. A petition must be filed along with the appropriate fees to reinstate an expired patent.

Time period when a maintenance fee can be paid with or without a surcharge.

This most frequently refers to an application that’s open to public inspection, which has been withdrawn at the request of the applicant.

A non-elected claim.
"Withdrawn" is the status identifier that should be used for claims that were not elected (chosen by the applicant to remain under consideration) in response to a restriction requirement.
Further, an appellant (one who is appealing an examiner's final rejection to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences) may withdraw some of the appealed claims, resulting in cancellation of the withdrawn claims.

An allowed application for a patent in which the applicant files correspondence to withdraw the patent from issue; ;thus preventing it from issuing on the patent issue date. The printed document is sometimes available on the day of publication, but is later retracted and will not be available in the patent database. No copy of the patent document will appear on the official USPTO web site.

A type of trademark consisting of text.

(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
(2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a “supplementary work” is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an “instructional text” is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities.
In determining whether any work is eligible to be considered a work made for hire under paragraph (2), neither the amendment contained in section 1011(d) of the Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999, as enacted by section 1000(a)(9) of Public Law 106-113, nor the deletion of the words added by that amendment —
(A) shall be considered or otherwise given any legal significance, or
(B) shall be interpreted to indicate congressional approval or disapproval of, or acquiescence in, any judicial determination,
by the courts or the Copyright Office. Paragraph (2) shall be interpreted as if both section 2(a)(1) of the Work Made For Hire and Copyright Corrections Act of 2000 and section 1011(d) of the Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999, as enacted by section 1000(a)(9) of Public Law 106-113, were never enacted, and without regard to any inaction or awareness by the Congress at any time of any judicial determinations.

(1) a painting, drawing, print or sculpture, existing in a single copy, in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author, or, in the case of a sculpture, in multiple cast, carved, or fabricated sculptures of 200 or fewer that are consecutively numbered by the author and bear the signature or other identifying mark of the author; or
(2) a still photographic image produced for exhibition purposes only, existing in a single copy that is signed by the author, or in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author.
A work of visual art does not include —
(A)(i) any poster, map, globe, chart, technical drawing, diagram, model, applied art, motion picture or other audiovisual work, book, magazine, newspaper, periodical, data base, electronic information service, electronic publication, or similar publication;
(ii) any merchandising item or advertising, promotional, descriptive, covering, or packaging material or container;
(iii) any portion or part of any item described in clause (i) or (ii);
(B) any work made for hire; or
(C) any work not subject to copyright protection under this title.

A work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties.

The "flow of work".
Workflow diagrams are a formal way to identify procedural steps and the logic employed in a process used to complete a task or job. Workflow diagrams include each interim step and product(s); the direction of movement through the process (indicated by arrows); decision points, alternative processes and repeated steps, and dependencies (steps or processes that must be completed before, during or after completion of a particular step); and can include the estimated time required for each step, who performs or reviews each step, and resource requirements. Depending on the type of workflow diagramming method used, the start and end points of each interim step may be listed separately or the entire process step can be indicated by a single notation.

From Public PAIR/IFW - designates the point in time when an amendment is received in the Office and the paper scanning process may be started at the USPTO; does not indicate whether scanning has actually started.