Legal Term Highlighted
one-year rule: The rule that requires a patent application to be filed within one year of the following: any public use of the invention by the inventor, a sale of the invention, an offer to sell the invention, or any description of the invention by the inventor in a published document. Failure to file a patent application within this one-year period results in the invention's passing into the public domain, where it is no longer eligible for a patent.
