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US Patent Law

Patents are temporary monopolies granted to inventors by the government, in exchange for public disclosure of how the invention works. They are one of the basic forms of intellectual property. A patent is a property right. Essentially, a patent gives the holder the right to exclude others from, among other things, using, selling, and making the claimed invention.

This text outlines patent law as it is applied in the United States.

History of patent law
The idea of patents dates back to Aristotle, but the earliest patent system was implemented in Venice in 1474. England issued its first patents under Elizabeth I and established a patent system in the Statute of Monopolies of 1624, the country's first antitrust law as well as its first patent law (barring all monopolies except over disclosed inventions).

Colonial governments in British North America issued patents as early as 1641, but the separate patent systems in each state led to problems as the colonies became better interconnected. The best-known of these problems was a conflict over the steamship patent in the late 1700s. These issues led the Constitutional Convention to add a clause to the Constitution permitting Congress to enact a national patent regime.

The Patent Act of 1790 created a very simple structure for granting patents, consisting of a three-member panel led by the Secretary of State (at that time, Thomas Jefferson). In 1836, the law was revised to provide for a system of patent examiners, similar to that which is used today. Today's patent law mostly dates to the Patent Act of 1952.

In 1982, Congress created the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) to hear patent appeals from across the country. One of the purposes for the Federal Circuit was to bring patent doctrine under the watch of a specialist court. Under the Federal Circuit, patents have strengthened, and more inventors have filed to take advantage of this stronger patent protection.

Parts of a patent
The key legal component of a patent is the claims, which set the legal scope of the patent. The claims are found at the very end of a printed U.S. patent. These claims are supported by the rest of the patent, generally described as the specification. The patent is also required to have an abstract, providing a summary of the claimed invention in non-legal language.

Claims
The claims are the most important component of a patent. The claims are what define the scope of the patent—which devices/compositions/processes its monopoly will cover, and which devices/compositions/processes are outside the monopoly. Infringement cases always revolve around the claims, not the specification, although the specification can be used to clarify the meaning of terms appearing in the claims. Despite any language in the specification to the contrary, (such as “The invention is ...“ or "The invention includes ...“), only the claims determine the scope of the monopoly right.

Some claims may include one or more means plus function elements, which define that element by the desired result of the element and will encompass well-known or later-discovered substitutions that perform that function. A "means for attaching part A to part B" could include various well-known types fasteners, such as nails, screws, bolts, glue, etc. and any equivalent means discovered after the filing date of the patent application. For instance, a "means for attaching part A to part B" element in a patent issued before the invention of velcro may cover the claimed device using velcro as a fastener. A claim cannot be composed entirely of "means plus function" elements.

Unless defined otherwise in the specification, all terms of the claims must be construed according to their common usage in the field of the invention at the time the patent application was filed.

Specification
From a researcher's perspective, the specification preceding the claims is the most interesting part of a patent. It shows how the invention works and how it is made and used.

The chief legal requirements for the specification is that it must "describe" the claimed invention in sufficient detail to "teach others how to make and use the invention". These are referred to as the written description and enablement requirements, respectively. The written description and enablement must match the breadth of the claims. If a claim includes devices/compositions/processes which are not described or are not enabled by the specification, that claim is invalid. It is not necessary for the specification to teach anything that is already well-known in the field of the invention, the written description and enablement requirements are judged assuming the reader of the patent to be a person having ordinary skill in the field.

The written description requirement is often considered to have an evidentiary purpose: it shows exactly what the inventor has discovered. In some cases, an insufficient written description can show that inventors are not due the full breadth of the claims. A famous example is Sawyer and Man's patent on the light bulb, in which the description discussed various filaments made of paper and wood, none of which were particularly superior for use in light bulbs. When Sawyer and Man tried to use their patent against Thomas Edison, his lawyers had it invalidated because its claims, covering all fibrous materials, were much broader than the materials Sawyer and Man had actually outlined in the description. The Incandescent Lamp Patent, 159 U.S. 465 (1895).

Additionally, the description must disclose the best mode for carrying out the invention, as known by the inventors at the time the patent application is filed. The idea is that a person cannot gain the monopoly of a general patent while keeping secret their best embodiment of the invention. In Bayer AG v. Schein Pharmaceuticals, 301 F.3d 1306 (2002), the Federal Circuit established a two-prong test for finding best mode violations:

 * 1) Did the inventor have a best mode of practicing the invention at the time they filed for the patent? If they didn't know of, or believe in, a best mode at that time, then there is no best mode violation.
 * 2) Is the disclosure in the patent specification adequate to enable a person having ordinary skill in the art to practice the best mode of the invention?

The specification may (but is not required to) include a "background section", which is used to describe the state of the art before the arrival of the instant invention and often describes the challenges or problems with the prior art that the instant invention seeks to solve.

Utility patents
Most patents are utility patents, so called because they cover "useful" processes and products. This text focuses on utility patents.

A utility patent can cover a physical product (e.g. a chemical compound), or it can cover a process for using a product (e.g. a method for creating a chemical compound). The scope of these concepts has changed over time. For example:

 * Artificially-created organisms were not patentable as products until the Supreme Court's decision in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980), which held that a genetically-engineered bacterium was a "nonnaturally occurring manufacture or composition of matter" entitled to product protection.
 * Business methods were not patentable until the Federal Circuit's decision in State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group, 149 F.3d 1368 (1998), holding that a patentable process must accomplish "a useful, concrete and tangible result".

A utility patent is in effect from the date the patent issues until twenty years from the date the application for patent was filed, so long as periodic maintenance fees are paid.

Design patents
Design patents are awarded to original designs for articles of manufacture. Like utility patents, design patents require novelty and nonobviousness. There is no utility requirement, but there are two other criteria for design patents. First, they must have ornamentality—they must be "the product of aesthetic skill and artistic conception." Design patents must also be not primarily functional. If the design is primarily functional, it should be the subject of a utility patent, not a design patent.

Design patents last for fourteen years.

Plant patents
Plant patents can be granted for any distinct and new variety of asexually-reproducing plant. Overall, plant patents are not as strong as utility patents in terms of protection.

Plant patents last twenty years from the date of application.

Patent procedure
Two terms often used to describe the procurement of a patent are preparation and prosecution. Preparation refers to the actual drafting of the patent application, whereas prosecution refers to the negotiation process with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to obtain a patent. Collectively, many practitioners refer to this process as '''prep. and pros.''' or simply, prosecution for short. The duration of prosecution varies greatly. The average successful prosecution takes about three years from start to finish, but exceptional prosecution cases can be completed within one year or drag on for more than a decade. Much prosecution delay is due to backlogs in the Patent Office caused by too many applications and not enough qualified examiners. Partly because of this backlog, in many art units an examiner's goals require averaging no more than 18 hours to perform the entire prosecution of each application. Nevertheless, in art units like software, backlogs have been known to extend to 5 years. Where delay is demonstrably due to patent office personel not meeting their timetables for responding to applicants, the term of the patent can be extended by the period of delay.

Filing
The process starts when an application is filed with the Patent Office. The application contains the components which will form the final patent—the specification (summary and description) and the claims (the "new" portions of the invention, which will be protected by the patent). The application must be signed under oath and accompanied by a filing fee.

If an inventor is not ready to file a full utility application, they can file a provisional application. The provisional application mainly serves to establish a priority date for the invention, a concept discussed later. After filing a provisional application, the inventor has twelve months to file their utility application, claiming the earlier priority date of the provisional application.

An inventor can file for a patent on their own, but most inventors enlist the help of a person who has passed the Patent Bar Examination. If this person has a law degree, they are known as a patent attorney. Trained scientists and engineers can also take the examination: they have the title of patent agent. The only practical difference, besides educational background, is that patent attorneys are also qualified lawyers and (if admitted to a state bar) can take patent infringement cases to court.

Inside the Patent Office
The Patent Office is divided into eight Technology Centers, each of which deals with a specific area of technology:

 * Technology Center 1600: biotechnology and organic chemistry
 * Technology Center 1700: chemical and materials engineering
 * Technology Center 2100: computer architecture software and information security
 * Technology Center 2600: communications
 * Technology Center 2800: semiconductors, electrical and optical systems and components
 * Technology Center 2900: designs
 * Technology Center 3600: transportation, e-commerce, construction, agriculture
 * Technology Center 3700: mechanical engineering, manufacturing and products
 * Technology Center 3900: reexaminations

Each center is divided into several examining groups, and each examining group is divided into several art units. Some groups are highly specialized to deal with fields that deal with many patent applications (Electronic Commerce). Other groups are more diverse (e.g. Aeronautics, Agriculture, Fishing, Trapping, Vermin Destroying, Plant and Animal Husbandry, Weaponry, Nuclear Systems, and Licensing and Review—a single examining group).

The art units are staffed by patent examiners who perform the actual examination of the application, usually after a waiting period of about a year. The examiner reviews each claim separately.

If the examiner considers a claim unpatentable, because of prior art or for other substantive reasons, the examiner issues an "office action" with a rejection of the claim. The applicant can either acquiesce (agree) to the rejection by deleting the claim from the application, or traverse (contest) the rejection. Traversal can involve arguing against the rejection on scientific and/or legal grounds or amending the claim or submitting a new claim to overcome the rejection. If the examiner considers the traversal and finds it unpersuasive, he will issue the rejection again in a "final office action". Although applicants can respond to the "final office action", the examiner is not compelled to continue prosecution of the application beyond considering applications after-final response.

If the claim is unpatentable for merely formal reasons, the examiner issues an objection. This often happens when more than one invention is claimed in a single application: in such cases, the examiner issues a "restriction requirement" and the inventor must divide their claims into separate applications, which are then processed on their own.

Should the applicant and the examiner reach an impasse (often demonstrated by a final office action), the applicant can file an appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, an administrative tribunal within the Patent Office. Alternatively, applicants may respond to a final office action by filing a continuation application, a fee, and a response to the final office action; the examiner must then issue a new office action, completing the circle of patent prosecution.

Once all rejections of the claims or objections to the claims or the specification are overcome, the examiner issues a "Notice of Allowance" and a patent will be granted, if an issue fee is paid.

Publication
Eighteen months after its priority date, the patent application is published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The print format of these publications appears very similar to an issued U.S. patent and published applications are often mistaken for issued patents. The publications say "United States Patent Application Publication" in line 12 and have a number in the upper right corner in the format US YYYY/XXXXXXX or US YYYY/XXXXXXX A1, where YYYY is the year of publication. Issued U.S. patents are labeled "United States Patent" in line 12 and are numbered US X,XXX,XXX, or lately US X,XXX,XXX B2. Published patent applications are not patents and do not have the effect of patents, they are simply a public record of the application.

Contesting a patent
Once a patent is granted, it can be contested in a number of ways. One way is to produce the patented device, and then argue the patent's validity when a suit for infringement is brought.

A person may also request a reexamination of a patent by the Patent Office. Historically, the patent office only considered prior art (e.g., documents) that were not considered in the initial examination, that is, on the face of the patent. However, recent revisions to PTO regulations enable the PTO to consider previously considered art so long as a substantial new question of patentability is raised.

Note that two types of reexamination exist- ex parte reexamination and inter partes reexamination. In ex parte reexamination, a 3rd party requestor's involvement is curtailed after filing the request for reexamination. In the case of inter partes reexamination, the requester is allowed a degree of participation- but note that estopped provisions may apply.

Finally, a person can bring suit against the patentee in federal court for a declaratory judgment of the patent's invalidity. As federal courts can only consider "cases and controversies" under article III of the constitution, a defendant seeking a declaratory judgment must demonstrate reasonable apprehension...typically in the form of threatening communications from the patentee.

Patentability
As described above, utility patents can be granted for products or processes. They cannot be granted for ideas; they must pertain to the application of an idea. That application must meet the basic requirements of utility, novelty, and nonobviousness.

Utility [35 U.S.C. § 101]
To be patentable, an invention must be "useful." This requirement is known in patent law as utility. There are three "types" of utility that appear in precedent: together, they form the notion of "utility" as it is applied by the Patent Office.

General utility is the notion that a patentable invention must "do something." It must have a useful function of some kind. In practice, it is not difficult to find a function for an invention: an invention can be purely entertaining and still be useful.

Specific utility refers to the ability of the invention to perform its function. It is the most commonly invoked form of utility. The specific utility doctrine is used to invalidate inventions such as perpetual motion machines, which may have a formal function but which are highly unlikely to fulfill that function.

Moral utility is a theory that an invention designed for an immoral purpose should not be patentable. It has not been invoked to invalidate patents in recent years, leading many to conclude that it is a dead doctrine. Some examples of moral utility:

 * Gambling devices. The doctrine was used to invalidate many gambling machine patents in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A number of other patents were invalidated simply because they could be used for gambling—inventions like coin return devices and horse racing games. However, by the 1970s, gambling machines were routinely receiving patents despite the moral utility arguments.
 * Misleading devices. One well-known early example was a patent for seamless stockings with fake seams: at the time (the 1920s), stockings with seams were widely viewed to be higher-quality than seamless stockings, so the fake seams were seen as an attempt to defraud consumers, and the patent was rejected. This line of jurisprudence ended in 1999, when the Federal Circuit upheld a patent for the Juicy Whip machine. The Juicy Whip is a lemonade dispenser which circulates an inert yellow liquid inside a visible tank while dispensing actual lemonade from a hidden tank below the counter: the Federal Circuit said that deceptiveness should not affect the utility of an invention.
 * Medicines of questionable safety. Today, the Patent Office leaves such issues to the judgment of the FDA, and does not deny drug patents on the basis that the drug is unsafe.

Novelty [35 U.S.C. § 102]
35 U.S.C. § 102 governs all of the conditions for novelty. In particular, § 102(a)-(g) govern the myriad of conditions that must be met for an invention to be novel. The two key novelty provisions, explained below, are set out in § 102(a) and § 102(b).

Novelty as to Invention Date
"A person shall be entitled to a patent unless the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for a patent." 35 U.S.C. § 102(a).

Novelty is the requirement that an invention be different from everything that has been published, known or marketed before.

The following definitions apply when discussing novelty and its related issues of statutory bar and priority:

 * Knowledge or use by others must be in public. Personal or experimental use does not count, but giving or selling the invention to any third party usually counts as public knowledge or use, unless the third party is expressly bound to secrecy.
 * Description in a printed publication occurs when the publication is made available to at least one member of the general public before the invention date of the patentee.

Novelty as to Filing Date - The Statutory Bar
"A person shall be entitled to a patent unless the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States." 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).

Statutory bar is similar to novelty, but not the same. Novelty can only be destroyed by others because it is based on the date of invention. Statutory bar is based on the date of filing. The doctrine essentially prevents inventors from waiting too long to request a patent. Once an inventor patents, publishes, publicizes or sells their invention, they have only one year to file for a U.S. patent, or else they lose their right to it.

So when a magazine is sent to subscribers or a dissertation is shelved in a library, the one-year clock begins for any inventions described therein.

Another way to conceptualize statutory bar is as priority of application, while novelty is priority of invention. That is, § 102(a) is evaluated with respect to the patentee's invention date whereas § 102(b) is evaluated with respect to patentee's filing date

Experimental use
Experimental use is an exception to what is considered public use for determination of whether an invention is novel or not. An inventor can use their invention in public for experimental purposes without that use counting as "public use," so long as the use is a bona fide effort to bring the invention to perfection or ensure that it will answer its designated purpose. The best known example of this exception is found in City of Elizabeth v. Pavement Company, 97 U.S. 126 (1877), where an inventor tested an experimental pavement on a public street for several years. This use was held to be "experimental use" and novelty was not affected.

Priority
In the United States, a patentee must be the first to invent. This is different from many other countries where the patent is given to the first to file. To be the first to invent, the inventor must generally be:

 * 1) the first person to reduce the invention to practice
 * 2) without abandoning the invention.

There is one exception. If someone conceives the invention first but is not the first to reduce it to practice, they receive priority if they were diligent in reducing the invention to practice.

"Reduction to practice" is the earliest date where the inventor can prove that they produced or applied the product or process successfully. Filing for a patent is considered to be the legal equivalent of reducing to practice if no earlier date can be proven.

Occasionally, a fight will break out in the patent office to determine who was the first to invent among patentees who claim the same invention. This fight is called an interference. 35 U.S.C. § 102(g).

Nonobviousness
"A patent may not be obtained... if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made." 35 U.S.C. § 103.

Nonobviousness adds an additional inquiry to novelty: is the invention new enough? The standard inquiry to determine nonobviousness is:

 * 1) Would the prior art suggest to those of ordinary skill in the art that they should make the claimed device or carry out the claimed process?
 * 2) Would the prior art have revealed that those of ordinary skill would have a reasonable expectation of success in doing so?

To reach this conclusion, the factfinder must examine:

 * 1) The scope and content of prior art
 * 2) The differences between the claimed invention and the prior art
 * 3) The level of ordinary skill in the art
 * 4) "Objective evidence of non-obviousness"—commercial success, long-felt unsolved need, failure of others, copying, and unexpected results.

The case of KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398, 127 S. Ct. 1727 (2007), raised the threshold considerably as to what is considered nonobvious. Now, applicants must meet a higher bar to show patentability of their inventions.

Literal infringement
Literal infringement is found when a person makes, uses, sells, offers for sale or imports an invention described in the claims of someone else's patent. The invention must contain every element of at least one claim in order to infringe the patent: if it fails to meet any part of the claim, it does not infringe that claim.

Infringement by equivalents
Even if the invention does not meet the literal criteria of a claim, it can infringe that claim by equivalents. To do so, it must have the "substantial equivalent" of every limitation or element of the claim. The general test for whether an element in an accused infringing device is an equivalent of a recited claim element is whether the element satisfies the triple-identity test. In short, the triple-identity test requires that the equivalent element perform the recited claim element in the same way, to perform the same function, to achieve the same result.

The doctrine of equivalents has certain limits. That is, the doctrine of equivalents cannot be used to expand a claim to an extent that would have made the claim invalid. It cannot, for instance, broaden the claim to include prior art. Further, the doctrine of prosecution history estoppel prohibits the recapture of claim scope that was given up during prosecution. That is, if the patentee gave up claim scope during the negotiation process with a USPTO examiner to overcome prior art rejections, the patentee cannot regain this scope later on during litigation by claiming equivalency under the doctrine of equivalents.

One difficult area for equivalents doctrine is improvements in technology. Claims are sometimes interpreted to include new technological advances that do not literally fall within their scope. For example, the patent for a light beam-assisted pipe-laying tool was held to cover laser-assisted tools as well in Laser Alignment v. Woodruff & Sons, 491 F.2d 866 (7th Cir. 1974). But other patents have not received protection under equivalents doctrine based on an entirety of the technology argument. A Texas Instruments patent on handheld calculators was not extended to cover models with MOS transistors and LCD readouts, on the grounds that "all of the claimed functions are performed in the accused devices by subsequently developed or improved means." ''Tex. Instruments v. U.S. Intl. Trade Commn.'', 805 F.2d 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1986).

Contributory infringement
"Whoever offers to sell or sells within the United States or imports into the United States a component of a patented machine, manufacture, combination or composition, or a material or apparatus for use in practicing a patented process, constituting a material part of the invention, knowing the same to be especially made or especially adapted for use in an infringement of such patent, and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use, shall be liable as a contributory infringer." 35 U.S.C. § 271(c).

Unlike direct infringement, contributory infringement requires knowledge of the patent's existence.

A related concept is inducement. "Whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer." 35 U.S.C. § 271(b). Inducement can be found in a variety of activities: telling someone to violate a patent, selling parts to builders of infringing devices, and so on.

Noninfringement
Obviously, one defense to infringment is simply that the defendant products or processes do not infringe the plaintiff's patents.

Invalidity
The defense of invalidity argues that the patent should not have been issued as a patent in the first place because the invention is not novel or is obvious. One example of patent invalidity would be where the defendant can show a printed publication that completely describes the invention before the invention date of the patentee. This defense is usually more difficult to prove than noninfringement, because the patentee is given a presumption of validity on the patent once it issues. Therefore, to invalidate a patent, a defendant must show patent invalidity by clear and convincing evidence, a much harder standard to overcome than the usual preponderance of the evidence or more likely than not standard.

Inequitable conduct
If a patent is obtained through inequitable conduct or fraud on the patent office, it may be rendered unenforceable (but not invalid). Patent applications that contain blatant falsehoods or omissions (e.g. concealing prior art known to the inventor) can lead to the entire patent being rendered unenforceable.

Patent misuse
Patent misuse refers to the use of a patent to illegally stifle competition: it is closely tied to antitrust law. The doctrine was first applied in ''Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co.'', 243 U.S. 502 (1917), where manufacturers licensed a film projector patent under the condition that the projectors must be licensed to end users so that they could only be used with films covered by the manufacturers' patent. A finding of patent misuse renders the entire patent unenforceable until the misuse is purged.

Generally, patent misuse prohibits the misuse of a patent through prolonging the duration of the patent beyond its expiration and tying the products not covered by the a patent's claims to the patent. For example, requiring a licensee of a patent to accept a contract duration for royalty payments over a 25 year term when only 10 years remain on a patent's term would be prohibited extension of the patent beyond its expiration. An example of tying misuse would be requiring licensees to sell certain accessories with a patented product and requiring licensees to pay royalties on the accessories that are not non-covered by the patent's claims.

Injunctions [35 U.S.C. § 283]
Following a complaint for infringement, a court can issue a preliminary injunction to stop the accused infringing action. The Federal Circuit has enunciated several factors that should be considered to decide whether a preliminary injunction should issue:

 * 1) Reasonable probability of eventual success in the litigation
 * 2) Complainant will be irreparably injured if relief is not granted
 * 3) Possibility of harm to others from the grant or denial of the injunction (optional)
 * 4) Public interest militating in favor of or against injunction (optional)

If the complainant prevails at trial, a permanent injunction against the infringement is almost always issued.

Damages [35 U.S.C. § 284]
Damages for patent infringement are generally lost profits, which are based on (1) demand for the product; (2) presence or absence of non-infringing substitutes; (3) the patent holder's manufacturing or marketing capacity to exploit demand; and (4) and the amount of profit the patent holder would have made. Panduit Corp. v. Stahlin Bros. Fibre Works, 575 F.2d 1152, 1156 (6th Cir. 1978).

 * Demand for the patented product can usually be presumed from infringement itself. The fact that there were buyers who wanted the product and willing to pay the infringer’s price proves demand.

 * The absence of noninfringing alternatives assures loss causation because, in the absence of infringing products, the demand could only be satisfied by the patentee's products. Courts tend to avoid speculative damage awards; therefore the patentee must show a reasonable likelihood that without the infringement it would have made the infringer’s sales. One factor is whether the alternatives proposed by the defendant compete in the same market for the same customers as the patented device. The alleged alternative must also not sell at a disproportionately higher price than the patented device. Finally, the availability of non-infringing alternatives may not preclude all recovery if, in a multi vendor marketplace, the patentee can show a reasonable market share with modest assumptions.

 * The patentee must also show that it had, or could have obtained the manufacturing and marketing capability to make all the sales in question. It can satisfy this factor by reliance not only on its own manufacturing capability, but also by evidence of the potential for licensing and contracting for the manufacture.

 * Finally, the amount of profits must be calculated using an incremental income approach that excludes the patentee’s fixed costs.
 * Lost Profits = Lost Revenues – Incremental Costs
 * Lost Revenues = the number of additional sales that the patentee would have made without the infringement, multiplied by the plaintiff’s historical (pre-infringement) prices
 * Incremental Costs = the number of additional sales that the patentee would have made without the infringement, multiplied by the variable cost per unit

 * A patent owner can also potentially recover lost profits on lost sales of unpatented products (or products covered by patents other than the one in question) that compete with the infringing device, so long as the patentee can establish loss causation. Rite-Hite Corp. v. Kelley Co., 56 F.3d 1538, 1545(1995).

 * The patentee may also seek to recover damages for the lost profits he would have made on accessory items that typically are purchased with the patented item. For these tag-along or convoyed sales, the Rite-Hite court held that those damages may also be recoverable. For such recovery, however, all of the components (patented item and the tag-along items) must work as a functional unit. If the tag-along items and the patented item can function as stand-alone products, then this type of damages may not be recoverable

 * As part of lost profits, the patentee may seek damages for price erosion in the patent holder's selling prices which is caused by the alleged infringement by creating competing supply of products or services. As with lost damages, the patentee seeking price erosion damages must prove causation, i.e. but for the infringement, it would have sold the products at a higher price. The patentee may fail if the accuser can show that the price erosion was due to factors other that the presence of the infringer in the marketplace, such as changing consumer preferences or an influx of imported products.

If lost profits cannot be proven, a reasonable royalty analysis can be substituted, in which damages are based on the amount a manufacturer would pay on the market for a license to produce the patented article. § 284 provides that the reasonable royalty is the minimum or floor below which the damages assessment cannot go. In analyzing how much is reasonable, courts may ask what the royalties would have been in a hypothetical negotiated license at the time of first infringement. The following factors are generally considered: (1) other competitors; (2) number of licenses; (3) future business and profit the patentee would lose by licensing to a competitor (cannibalization); and (4) how central the patent is to what is being marketed. Alternatively, courts may use the analytical approach and take the infringer’s net profit margin, leave it an “industry standard” profit and give the rest back to the patentee as reasonable royalty.

§ 284 also provides for enhanced damages up to three times (treble damages) in exceptional cases. The standard for enhanced damages is willful infringement demonstrated by egregious conduct based on facts and circumstances, i.e. deliberate copying. Although a good faith belief of non-infringement, such as an opinion letter from outside counsel may shield a defendant from enhanced damages, the defendant may still be liable for actual damages discussed above.

In addition to § 284 damages, a defendant, under § 285, may have to pay attorney fees if defendant (generally through its attorneys) commits litigation misconduct that is exceptionally bad, such as tampering with evidence, frivolous lawsuit or defenses. Attorney fees award amount usually bears some relation to the extent of the misconduct in question.

Exploitation of Patents
Because patents are a property right, they may be owned or transferred to another much like any other property right.

To transfer ownership of a patent, one "assigns" the patent to another.

A patent may also be licensed. A license provides permission for another party to engage in conduct that would otherwise be infringing.

title: US Patent Law


text:
US Copyright Law

Copyrights are rights to copy, distribute, display and perform creative works. They are one of the basic forms of intellectual property.

This text discusses copyright law as it applies in the United States. This concise presentation necessarily omits a number of important provisions of a very complex area of law.

Introduction
American copyright law traces its lineage to the English Statute of Anne, passed in 1710. The Statute provided that authors of books had an exclusive right to their works for fourteen years, which could be renewed by the author for an additional fourteen years.

After the American Revolution, many states passed statutes modeled on the Statute of Anne. Because the laws were different from state to state, the Constitutional Convention decided that the new Congress should have the power to pass a national copyright statute, and added a clause in Article I to that effect. The statute was enacted as the Copyright Act of 1790, one of Congress's first laws. Like the Statute of Anne, it provided a 14-year initial term, renewable for an additional 14 years, and it only applied to books, maps, and (maritime) charts. Over the next century, the 1790 Act was expanded to cover other types of works.

There was a full revision of the copyright laws in 1870, and after that the next major revision of the Act was passed as the Copyright Act of 1909. The 1909 Act doubled the term of copyrights to 28 years, renewable for an additional 28, and expanded protection to cover all written works in the US as well as many foreign works. Both the 1790 Act and the 1909 Act required a number of formalities before copyright would attach: these formalities are described later.

The Copyright Act of 1976 formed the basic copyright law regime which the US follows today. It provided a single copyright term for works created after 1977: the life of the author, plus fifty years (seventy-five years from fixation in the case of works made for hire). It eliminated many of the required formalities and applied copyright at the moment the work was "fixed" in a tangible medium of expression.

Since then, the main revisions to the 1976 Act have been the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, adding new laws pertaining to digital audio recordings; the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, extending the term of copyright for an additional twenty years (see Duration); and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, imposing new rules on high-tech works.

Copyrightable Works
To be copyrightable, a work must be an original work of authorship that is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. These requirements are often shortened to creativity and fixation.

Original works of authorship
An original work of authorship can be just about anything. 17 U.S.C. § 102(a) lists eight basic kinds, by way of example:

 * 1) Literary works - Any work expressed in letters, numbers, or symbols, regardless of medium. This Wikibook is a literary work under the Copyright Act. Computer source code is also considered to be a literary work. If a literary work is fictional, its characters, plot, structure and other devices can be copyrighted along with the actual text, but only to the extent that they are original and expressive.
 * 2) Musical works - Original musical compositions. Actual performances of music are covered as a different type of work, a "sound recording." 17 U.S.C. § 115 provides that anyone may create a sound recording of any composition, so long as they pay that composer a set licensing fee.
 * 3) Dramatic works - Distinguished from literary works in that they direct a performance through written instructions.
 * 4) Choreographic works - Added in the 1976 Act. They must be "fixed," either through notation or video recording.
 * 5) Pictorial, graphic and sculptural works - Any two-dimensional or three-dimensional art work may be copyrighted as a PGS work. These works are constrained by the "useful article doctrine" described below, which serves to keep copyright and patent law divided.
 * 6) Audiovisual works - Includes films, television programs and any other work that combines audio and visual components.
 * 7) Sound recordings - Any magnetically or digitally recorded audio work (except the accompanying audio to a visual work, which is treated as part of the audiovisual work). Unlike musical works, there is no statutory licensing of sound recordings. While anyone may produce a rendition of an artist's composition by paying him the statutory fee, they may not reproduce his recordings without his express permission.
 * 8) Architectural works - Added in the 1976 Act. Copyright in architectural works only extends to aesthetics. If a design element is "functionally required," it is not protected by copyright. See H.R. Rep. No. 101-735 (1990) and "Useful article doctrine," below.

Idea vs. expression
Copyright protects creative and useful expression in an author's article, but it does not protect the ideas expressed in that article. By consuming a work, a reader may learn a number of "facts," things asserted as true by the work. The "facts" related within are in the public domain and free for anyone else to disseminate. Consider a hypothetical biography of William Henry Harrison. This book may certainly contain the fact, learned from another work, that Harrison was considered more of a showman than a serious political candidate in his day, but this book may not use the specific wording used in the original biography without permission of the person holding its copyright.

Of course, that is a historical record, and maybe it seems natural that someone cannot copyright the details of that man's life. In the fictional realm, it may seem natural that the author can control the facts of their novel because the plot is their creative work. This is not the case, although a more nuanced analysis is required for fictional facts. This does not even have anything to do with Fair Use: the individual ideas in the story are simply not covered by copyright while the whole of them is. As long as the later work does not have exactly the same plot, similarities are allowed, and the later work may also discuss the facts of the earlier work with impunity.

Facts vs. Compilations
Copyright does not protect recording of facts that are "common property" and contain no "original authorship". Some examples are standard calendars, tape measures and rulers, height and weight charts, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources. For example a recipe which contains only a list of ingredients is not copyrightable, but a recipe contains elements of original authorship such as explanations, instructions, and illustrations can be copyrighted.

On the other hand compilations of facts such as dictionaries and even telephone directories can receive copyright protection. But the facts themselves cannot be copyrighted—only the expression of those facts can be copyrighted. This means that many database providers may not be able to rely on copyright to protect their data from being republished: they must rely on licenses and other elements of contract law. In other cases, the law of unfair competition can prevent one business from using another's compilations of information in an unfair way. See ''Intl. News Serv. v. Associated Press'', 248 U.S. 215 (1918) (holding that INS could not re-report AP news stories on the West Coast for commercial advantage).

In the realm of software, source code and object code are copyrightable, but other elements of a program may not be. User interfaces, for instance, are generally not copyrightable: see Apple Computer v. Microsoft, 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994) (icons and desktop appearance of Windows not copyrightable); Lotus Development v. Borland Intl., 49 F.3d 807 (1st Cir. 1995) (menu structure of Lotus 1-2-3 not copyrightable).

Useful article doctrine
Many pictorial, graphic and sculptural works are also patentable as useful inventions. If the creative component of a work cannot be separated from its functional component, it is considered an industrial design and it cannot be copyrighted. This is known as conceptual separability. One well-known example is the Brandir Ribbon bicycle rack, which adopted an artistic design quite different from previous bicycle racks. Because the creativity of the design was inseparable from its functionality, the rack was deemed protectable only through patent law. ''Brandir Intl. v. Cascade Pacific Lumber'', 834 F.2d 1142 (2d Cir. 1987). For more on patents, see the Wikibook on US Patent Law.

Government works
Works of the U.S. federal government are not copyrighted. 17 U.S.C. § 105; see also Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. 591 (1834) (official reporter of the Supreme Court unable to protect annotations of Supreme Court opinions).

State statutes and court opinions are generally considered to be public domain as well, because of a public policy interest in allowing citizens unrestricted access to the law. See Nash v. Lathrop, 6 N.E. 559 (Mass. 1886) (state statutes held to be public domain); ''Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Cong. Intl.'', 293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002) (model statutes enter public domain when enacted).

However, other state government works can be copyrighted when the creator of the work needs an economic incentive; see ''Co. of Suffolk v. First Am. Real Estate Solutions'', 261 F.3d 179 (2d Cir. 2001) (county allowed to hold copyright in tax maps).

Fixation
Fixation requires that the work be recorded in a form that can be perceived directly or by means of a device "now known or later developed." Writing, drawing, sculpting, recording and making notations all count as fixation. Improvisational and/or unrecorded performances of music, dance or drama are likely to be creative but not fixed. Something that is typed on a computer but never saved to a permanent storage medium might also be unfixed (but once the work is saved, it is fixed). Oddly, ice sculptures are not adequately fixed to warrant copyright protection, but RAM copies of data are adequately fixed.

The US copyright office, in the Compendium of US Copyright Law, notes the following (rare) examples of works that have not been adequately "fixed" for copyright purposes:

"Choreography that has never been filmed or notated." "An extemporaneous film that has not been filmed or recorded." "A work communicated solely through conversation . . .."

Formalities
Under the 1790 and 1909 Acts, formalities were a necessary prerequisite to copyright protection. The 1976 Act made many of these formalities unnecessary to receive protection, and since US accession to the Berne Convention, formalities are generally not required for copyright protection, although they give the copyright holder some distinct advantages if followed. There are three sets of rules for formalities:

 * Works created before January 1, 1978 follow the rules of the 1909 Act.
 * Works created between January 1, 1978 and March 1, 1989 follow the rules of the 1976 Act.
 * Works created after March 1, 1989 follow the rules of the Berne Convention Implementation Act.

Notice
The 1909 Act required that all published works carry the "©" symbol or the word "Copyright," the year of first publication, and the name of the author in order to receive copyright. Several years may be noted in the case of multiple completion dates - e.g., in the case of further editing. The 1976 Act eased the particularities of the notice requirement, but kept it as a prerequisite to copyright protection.

Today, notice is not a requirement. The Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1989 made notice unnecessary on all works first published after March 1, 1989. Notice is still encouraged by the law, however. If a work carries copyright notice, the notice bars other parties from claiming "innocent infringement" as a defense. 17 U.S.C. § 401. Practically, this means that an author who has registered a copyright on the work may sue for punitive damages.

Publication
Under the 1909 Act, publication had two important legal purposes: it applied federal copyright protection to the work, and it removed common law copyright protection. Courts eventually determined that there were two types of publication. Investive publication, the type that would apply federal protection, did not have to be widespread: it could be among a small group of people. Federal protection would not attach unless notice and other formalities were followed, but in the absence of such formalities, common law protection would still apply. Divestive publication, the type that would remove common law protection, had to be on a larger, more general scale.

The 1976 Act changed the law so that federal copyright protection attaches upon fixation, not publication. This eliminated the entire concept of investive publication. Divestive publication remained in a different form: if a work was offered to the public without copyright notice and other formalities, it would lose its copyright protection under federal law.

Since 1989, publication has had no effect upon the validity of copyright. It still has relevance to post-1989 works: it determines when deposit is required, and it determines the term length for works by corporate authors, among other purposes.

Registration
Copyright registration has never been a requirement for protection, but it has always been helpful to authors. The most important aspect of registration, which applies under all three copyright regimes, is that registration is a prerequisite to suing for infringement. Note that registration can occur after the infringement itself, but it must be made before any suit is filed.

Under the 1909 Act, registration was also necessary before renewing a copyright. The vast majority of authors did not renew their work, but this stipulation may have prevented those who did not anticipate their work remaining relevant enough for renewing to make a financial difference. In that sense, not registering would have prevented authors from doubling their copyright term for that work.

Deposit
When a person registers a copyright, they must supply two copies of the work to the Library of Congress. 17 U.S.C. § 408. The deposit requirement also applies to any work published in the United States for which copyright is claimed within three months of publication. 17 U.S.C. § 407.

Rights conferred by copyright
The actual rights contained within a copyright are:

 * Right to copy. This right includes all exact or substantially similar reproduction of the work.
 * Right to make derivative works. Derivative works include translations, adaptations to other media (for instance, movies based on books, books based on movies, toys based on movies, movies based on other movies, books based on other books, art works based on photographs, etc.), annotations and editorial revisions. Unauthorized derivative works receive no copyright protection, even for their original elements.
 * Right to distribute. The author has the right to control the sale and importation of their work, subject to the "first sale doctrine" described under Infringement.
 * Right to publicly perform. Performance applies to dynamic works such as drama, music and choreography. Any act that makes such works perceivable to viewers or listeners is a performance; "public" generally means in an environment "open to the public." Note that authors have no performance right in a sound recording, although there is a performance right in musical compositions.
 * Right to publicly display. Display applies to static works such as photography and sculpture. Generally, the owner of a copy has the right to display their copy to anyone present at the place where it is located: this means that authors cannot keep art works out of galleries. The display right is generally invoked to stop broader displays of a work, such as on a television broadcast or web site. Note that authors have no display right in architectural works.
 * Moral rights. Authors of works of visual art gained the right to attribution and integrity when the U.S. acceded to the Berne Convention in 1989. These rights include the right to "prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification" to one's work if it would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation.  17 U.S.C. 106A.

Ownership of copyright
When someone creates a pieces of work, they get to copy right it.

When an individual creates a work within the scope of their employment, their work is considered a work for hire and, in the absence of a contrary provision in the contract, the copyright goes to their employer. The doctrine is governed by the common law of agency, so independent contractors are not considered to be working for hire; see Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U.S. 730 (1989). Some works of non-employees may considered to be works for hire, but only "if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them": such works include translations, contributions to collective works, atlases and parts of motion pictures. 17 U.S.C. § 101. Courts generally except university professors from this rule: they usually have copyright in their work regardless of whether it was made in the scope of their employment. See Hays v. Sony Corp of Am., 847 F.2d 412 (7th Cir. 1988).

When a work has more than one author, the authors can have joint ownership. To receive joint copyright, the authors must each contribute an independently copyrightable contribution, and must intend their contributions be merged into a unitary whole. This is often governed by contracts between authors, but can also be inferred from the parties' roles in the creation of the work; see Aalmuhammed v. Lee, 202 F.3d 1227 (9th Cir. 2000).

Collective works such as periodicals, anthologies and encyclopedias can be copyrighted independently of their contributions. The authors retain copyright in their individual contributions, but the compiler has copyright in the entire collective work. 17 U.S.C. § 201(c).

Duration
The length of copyright has changed over the 20th century. The most recent legislation, the Sonny Bono Act of 1998, extended copyright terms for an additional 20 years after intense lobbying by the entertainment industry. This was challenged on constitutional grounds (that Congress could not keep extending copyrights indefinitely), but the Supreme Court's decision in ɛldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003), held the act to be constitutional. The current duration rules are, in general, as follows:

Division and transfer
A copyright can be divided and given to others. This was not always the case: under the 1909 Act, a copyright was only transferable in its entirety: transferring part of a copyright was interpreted as a license, akin to a lease of property. Under the 1976 Act, a transfer of a copyright or part of a copyright is valid if executed in writing and signed by the copyright owner. 17 U.S.C. § 204.

The Copyright Act also contains provisions for termination of transfer in 17 U.S.C. §§ 203 and 304(c). These provisions allow the original author of many types of work to "take back" their copyright at a certain date after transferring it.

 * Authors of works created after 1977 may terminate transfers between the 35th and 40th year following the execution of the transfer.
 * Authors of works created before 1978 may terminate transfers between the 56th and 61st year of copyright protection.
 * The transfer to an employer of a work made for hire may not be terminated. This includes all motion pictures, sound recordings and contributions to collective works (e.g. magazines and anthologies).

Infringement of right to copy
To find infringement of the right to copy, a court must find copying and improper appropriation of the copyrighted work by the accused infringer.

Copying
Independent creation of a copyrighted work is not considered to be copying. This means that copying cannot be proven from similarity alone. There are two ways to prove copying.

The first is through direct evidence. Some authors (especially authors of factual compilations such as phone books) plant minor errors in their works so there will be obvious evidence of any copying. In other cases, there may be evidence of the infringer's admission to copying.

The other way to prove copying is through circumstantial evidence. The factors in this analysis are access and similarity. If the author of the accused work had access to the original, and the accused work has sufficient similarities to the original, a court can conclude that copying took place.

Improper appropriation
While copying is a fairly straightforward analysis, improper appropriation is often more difficult. When a work is copied word for word (or bit for bit), the copying can generally be considered to be improper appropriation. The more difficult case is when only part of a work is copied—for example, when characters or plot devices from a literary work, or a chord progression or melody from a musical composition, are copied to create a derivative work.

The key to improper appropriation is substantiality of the copying. Copying an insubstantial part of a work is not likely to constitute infringement. Whether copying is substantial is still a difficult question. In Nichols v. Universal Pictures, 45 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1930), Judge Learned Hand concluded that "the proper approach" in answering the question must be "more like that of a spectator, who would rely upon the complex of his impressions of each character." This is known as the subjective test for improper appropriation. Some other courts, particularly in the Ninth Circuit, apply an objective test that compares each copyrightable element of the two works to determine to what extent the accused work copies the original.

Note also that in some circumstances, certain works or certain parts of works can legally be copied under the fair use doctrine, discussed later.

Infringement of right to distribute
Copyright owners also have the sole right to distribute copies of their work, whether through sales or otherwise. This includes the right to import: 17 U.S.C. § 602 bans unauthorized importation of copyrighted works, except for certain personal or educational uses.

The key exception to this right is the first sale doctrine. Once a legal copy is sold, the copyright holder has no further control over the distribution of that particular copy of the work. For example, one who purchases a book may re-sell that book without violating the copyright holder's section 106(3) distribution right. The only exceptions to this doctrine are sound recordings and computer programs, which cannot be rented out even after their first sale. 17 U.S.C. § 109.

Contributory and vicarious infringement
Contributory infringement is a common law doctrine famously stated in Gershwin Publishing v. Columbia Artists Mgmt., 443 F.2d 1159 (2d Cir. 1971): "One who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another, may be held liable as a 'contributory' infringer." Vicarious infringement is a separate but related doctrine applied to those who have the power to halt infringing conduct, and derive a financial benefit from the infringing conduct.

The two doctrines can be found together, but can also be found separately. Contributory infringement is a tort doctrine; it requires knowledge and participation. Vicarious infringement is more closely related to agency. A person can be liable for vicarious infringement simply because of their relation with the infringer (e.g. an employer can be liable for employees' infringement on the job). Both types of infringement are equivalents of direct infringement.

The most famous contributory and vicarious infringement case is Sony v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984). The Supreme Court was deeply split on the issue, but a 5-4 majority decided that Sony was not liable for contributory infringement from the sale of its Betamax VCRs. "The sale of copying equipment," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens, "like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses." The Court went on to find that "time shifting," the act of videotaping a broadcast to watch it later, was a form of fair use even if unauthorized, and therefore not infringing. Similar logic was applied to MP3 players in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, 180 F.3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999) (holding "space shifting" to be a substantial noninfringing use).

The rapid growth of the Internet has led to a number of developments in contributory and vicarious infringement law. One early fear was that the doctrines would lead to potentially limitless liability for any person operating a system that processed infringing data. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 created a "safe harbor" for ISPs and server operators, protecting them from contributory infringement as long as they (1) have a policy of terminating users who are repeat copyright infringers, (2) adopt standard copyright protection measures, and (3) register an agent with the Copyright Office to receive infringement claims from copyright owners. The safe harbor applies to systems involved in the routing, storing, caching, and linking of copyrighted data.

Despite the safe harbor, some online services have been found liable for contributory and vicarious infringement. The best-known examples are the Napster and Grokster file sharing services, both of which were forced to shut down after they were unable to effectively police their content to stop infringement. A&M Records v. Napster, 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001); MGM Studios v. Grokster, 545 U.S. ___ (2005).

Criminal infringement
17 U.S.C. § 506(a) provides that an infringer faces criminal liability in two situations:

 * 1) When their infringement is "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain."
 * 2) When they distribute "1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works" with a total value of greater than $1,000 within any 180-day period.

Criminal infringement is punishable by up to ten years in prison (for repeat offenders). See 18 U.S.C. § 2319.

Circumvention
The DMCA contains provisions to criminalize the circumvention of copy protection technology. See 17 U.S.C. § 1201 et seq. These provisions have been used to stop a variety of activities. The publishing of DVD decryption code was deemed illegal in Universal City Studios v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001). Later, in U.S. v. Elcom, 203 F.Supp.2d 1111 (N.D. Cal. 2002), anticircumvention law was used to enjoin the publication of software that could convert copy-protected Adobe eBooks to unprotected PDF files.

One unintended consequence of the anticircumvention law was a flurry of litigation involving producers of after market accessories for electronic devices. Two cases decided in 2004 made it clear that the DMCA would not cover such anticircumvention claims. In ''Lexmark Intl. v. Static Control Components'', 381 F.3d 1178 (6th Cir. 2004), anticircumvention protection was denied to a printer manufacturer after another company reverse engineered codes for its proprietary ink cartridges. In Chamberlain v. Skylink Technologies, 381 F.3d 1178 (Fed. Cir. 2004), the court ruled that buyers of garage doors were free to reverse engineer the code on their garage door opener, since otherwise they couldn't open their own garage.

Other offenses

 * Publishing of a fraudulent copyright notice, or fraudulent removal of a copyright notice, is punishable by a fine of up to $2,500. 17 U.S.C. §§ 506(c)-(d).
 * False representations in a copyright application are punishable by a fine of up to $2,500. 17 U.S.C. § 506(e).

Fair use
The most common defense to copyright infringement is fair use. It is a highly vague (and therefore highly versatile) doctrine. The Copyright Act provides (17 U.S.C. § 107) that a finding of fair use depends on:

 * 1) The "purpose and character of the use"—e.g., whether it is for profit or for educational purposes.
 * 2) The "nature of the copyrighted work."
 * 3) The "amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole."
 * 4) The "effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

While all four factors must be considered, they are not exclusive: courts can (and do) consider other factors in ruling on whether use of a copyrighted work counts as fair use. Examples of fair use include:

 * Parody, most likely to be found when the work is criticizing the original upon which it is based.
 * Copying for personal use, such as the "time shifting" permitted by Sony, the "space shifting" permitted by Diamond and photocopying of books for research purposes. But if such copying is used to escape licensing provisions (as may be the case with software or technical journals), it may not be considered fair use.

License
A person may copy a copyrighted work if the original author has given them a license to do so. Licenses are often in writing, but they need not be: if the copyright owner gives verbal consent to another person, that person is legally entitled to copy the work to the extent allowed by the owner. Note, however, that transferring the entire copyright requires a written contract or deed.

More precisely, an exclusive license gives the "licensee" (the recipient of the license) the right to prevent others from using the work. An exclusive license must be in writing. A non-exclusive license allows the licensee to use the work, but does not give the licensee the power to grant or deny a license to anyone else. A non-exclusive license does not have to be in writing.

Copyright misuse
Copyright misuse is a fairly recent (and not universally accepted) doctrine that seeks to prohibit the use of copyrights for anti-competitive purposes. It is connected to antitrust law and derived in part from the patent misuse doctrine.

Statute of limitations
Under 17 U.S.C. § 507, a civil suit for copyright infringement can only be brought within three years "after the claim accrued." A claim accrues every time a work is illegally copied and every time an infringing work is illegally sold or transferred, so statute of limitations defenses are usually very difficult to successfully assert. Also under § 507, the statute of limitations in criminal cases is five years.

Fair Use
Fair Use is the doctrine in American copyright law pertaining to the utilization of copyrighted works without the supposed necessity of economic reimbursement or artistic license. Because the application of this doctrine to cases of copyright infringement and utilization has rendered an exact definition of the doctrine elusive, law has been unable to reflect a statutory definition. The doctrine was finally recognized by statute in the Copyright Act of 1976, which was part of a greater general revision of American copyright laws.

Fair Use According to Copyright Law
§107 in Title 17 of the United States Code consists of the fair use doctrine as recognized by statute:

''Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—''

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: US Copyright Law


text:
US Trademark Law

{| style="width:65%;"
 * style="background-color: cream; border: solid 1px gray; padding: 1em;" valign="top" |

Contents

 * /Introduction/
 * /Types of protected mark/
 * /Trademarkability/
 * /Infringement/
 * /Remedies/
 * }

title: US Trademark Law


text:
Guide to Unix/Explanations/Scheduling Jobs

Scheduling with Cron
Cron is an automated scheduler in UNIX/Linux Systems, which executes jobs (scripts) which are scheduled by system, root, or individual users. Information of schedules is contained within crontab file (which is different and individual for each user). When the cron daemon starts, it searches for crontab files, which are user named account names in /var/cron/tabs directory. Cron daemon wakes up every minute and checks for any jobs scheduled to be executed in crontab files. Every time cron daemon wakes up to check crontab files, it also checks /etc/crontab file for any modifications in time stamp of the file, which it keeps track and records. When you simply 'touch' /etc/crontab file, cron daemon will catch it and ultimately stop executing scheduled jobs in crontabs - this is how to stop cron daemon. In order to have cron daemon continue running scheduled jobs, you need to restart it (bounce it).

Controlling access with 'cron.allow' and 'cron.deny'

 * Access will be granted when user is listed in file /etc/cron.allow
 * Otherwise, access will be denied if username is found in /etc/cron.deny
 * If neither of these files exists, then depending on site-dependent configuration parameters, only the super user will be allowed to have access, or all users will have access.
 * For standard Debian systems (including Ubuntu), all users will be granted access when neither file exists.
 * For Fedora systems, only the super user will be granted access when neither file exists.

Four places to submit a cron job

 * 1) The /var/spool/cron/username file: each individual user (indicated by username) controls his or her own separate file
 * 2) The /etc/crontab file: This is system crontab file. Only root has permission to modify this file.
 * 3) The /etc/cron.d directory. Each file placed in this directory has the same format as the /etc/crontab. Only root has permission to create or modify the files in this directory.
 * 4) The /etc/cron.hourly, /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.weekly, and /etc/cron.monthly directories
 * 5) * Each file in these directories is a shell script that runs at the times specified in the /etc/crontab file (by default at one minute after the hour, at 4:02 a.m. every day, Sunday at 4:22 a.m., and 4:42 a.m. on the first day of the month, respectively )
 * 6) * Only root has permission to create or modify the files in these directories.

Crontab format
* * * * * command to be executed - - - - | | | | | | | | | - day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0) | | | --- month (1 - 12) | | - day of month (1 - 31) | --- hour (0 - 23) min (0 - 59)

 * 1) An asterisk (*) in any field indicates all possible values for that field.
 * 2) Lists of values, ranges of values, and increments can be used. Examples:
 * 3) * Lists: Days could be represented as the list Mon,Wed,Fri.
 * 4) * Range: Hours can be specified as range 9–5
 * 5) * Increment: 0–31/3in the third field to represent every third day of the month
 * 6) * */5 denotes every five minutes
 * 7) Any variable can be specified to fine−tune the environment in which the job will run. Example:
 * 8) * MAILTO=otheruser variable enable to send email to user other than the one who submitted the cron job

Commands

 * 1) crontab −l : list the current contents of your own personal crontab file
 * 2) crontab −r : remove all crontab entries
 * 3) crontab −e : edit crontab file
 * 4) ps -e |grep cron : Displays status of cron daemon if running.
 * 5) /usr/sbin/cron & : Starts users cron daemon.


text:
User:Trevor Andersen~enwikibooks

I'm a student of Computer Science and Mathematics at James Cook University in Townsville. I've contributed to:
 * Programming:C_plus_plus

title: User:Trevor Andersen~enwikibooks


text:
User talk:BrDanIzzo~enwikibooks

Copyrights
Please do not submit copyrighted work to Wikibooks. This website is to develop new books. We do not accept finished books, especially books protected by copyrights. --Derbeth talk 09:11, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Please do not restore deleted content. We do not accept books that are not under GFDL license or are public domain. You ignored my warnings so I blocked you for one day. --Derbeth talk 09:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called BrDanIzzo. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name BrDanIzzo~enwikibooks that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 22:59, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 04:42, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:BrDanIzzo~enwikibooks


text: User talk:65.93.45.112

title: User talk:65.93.45.112


text: User talk:81.199.88.22

title: User talk:81.199.88.22


text: User talk:68.97.9.9

title: User talk:68.97.9.9


text: User talk:88.107.212.32

title: User talk:88.107.212.32


text: User talk:83.131.178.206

title: User talk:83.131.178.206


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Super NES Programming/pixel editing tutorial

Formats
The SNES supports multiple image formats, the main two being 2bpp, meaning two bits per pixel, and 4bpp, meaning 4 bits per pixel.

2bpp images allow 4 colors in an image, and 4bpp images allow 16 colors in an image. The format most commonly associated with the SNES is that of 4bpp, so if you are looking to create SNES-like graphics, use 4bpp. Additionally, all sprites in SNES games use 4bpp images.

The image format used by the background is determined by which Mode is chosen. The most commonly used mode, Mode 1, has 3 background layers, the first two being 4bpp and the third being 2bpp. When this mode is used in Super Mario World or Street Fighter 2, for example, the first background (4bpp) is used as the foreground/play area, the second (4bpp) as the backdrop, and the third (2bpp) as an overlay displaying titles and player statistics.

Tools
There are several tools available to edit SNES graphics.

General purpose raster graphics editing programs such as GIMP are good, but not being designed for SNES files means there is quite a bit of setting up to save in to the correct file format. Tools such as YY-CHR are made specifically to create graphics for older consoles, and can easily save directly in to a format usable by the SNES. YY-CHR is widely used in the SMW hacking community. Note that YY-CHR supports a variety of formats and you will have to specifically choose 4bpp in the dropdown inside the program to save in to the SNES 16 color format.


text: User talk:65.118.231.193

title: User talk:65.118.231.193


text: User talk:217.11.138.195

title: User talk:217.11.138.195


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Cookbook:Spinach Artichoke Dip

Formal or informal, spinach artichoke dip is a great appetizer at any party. It is quick and easy taking very little time to prepare. The dip may be served with a variety or crackers, breads, or chips.

Ingredients

 * 16 ounces (450 g) cream cheese
 * ¾ cup (180 ml) heavy cream (use half milk, if desired)
 * ⅓ cup (80 ml) grated Parmesan cheese
 * ¼ teaspoon (60 ml) garlic powder
 * 16 ounces (450 g) frozen cut leaf spinach, thawed and well drained
 * 1 can quartered artichoke hearts, rinsed and well-drained
 * ⅔ cup (160 ml) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
 * 1 cup prepared (240 ml) salsa
 * Crackers or tortilla chips, for serving

Procedure

 * 1) In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, process the cream cheese, cream, Parmesan cheese, and garlic powder until smooth and creamy. Add the spinach and process until thoroughly mixed. Add the artichokes and process just until coarsely chopped.
 * 2) Turn the mixture into a 3½-quart electric slow cooker; smooth the top.
 * 3) Cover and cook on the high heat setting for 1¼–1½ hours, until hot in the center. Sprinkle the top evenly with the Jack cheese and spoon the salsa in a ring around the inside edges of the slow cooker. Cover and continue heating on high 15 minutes longer, or until the cheese is melted.
 * 4) Reduce the heat to the low setting and serve warm with crackers or tortilla chips for dipping. Refrigerate any leftovers.

Notes, tips, and variations

 * This dip is best served hot but may also be served chilled.
 * If served in a bread bowl, pieces may be broken off and used as dipping tools for further enjoyment.
 * Other condiments that go great with this dip include sides of salsa, guacamole, or sour cream.
 * This is great appetizer for vegetarians, and vegan cream cheese may be substituted if need be.

title: Cookbook:Spinach Artichoke Dip


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Cookbook talk:Spinach Artichoke Dip

Spinach artichoke dip authors and history
= From Wikipedia:Talk:Australian artichoke dip =
 * 2005-12-13 05:47:39 User:70.122.87.59
 * 2005-12-13 05:43:23 User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson (afd)
 * 2005-12-13 05:37:14 User:Shades9

title: Cookbook talk:Spinach Artichoke Dip


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Statistics/Testing Data/Chi-SquaredTest

General idea
Assume you have observed absolute frequencies $$o_i$$ and expected absolute frequencies $$e_i$$ under the Null hypothesis of your test then it holds

$$V = \sum_i \frac{(o_i-e_i)^2}{e_i} \approx \chi^2_f .$$

$$i$$ might denote a simple index running from $$1,...,I$$ or even a multiindex $$(i_1,...,i_p)$$ running from $$(1,...,1)$$ to $$(I_1,...,I_p)$$.

The test statistics $$V$$ is approximately $$\chi^2$$ distributed, if

 * 1) for all absolute expected frequencies $$e_i$$ holds $$e_i \geq 1$$ and
 * 2) for at least 80% of the absolute expected frequencies $$e_i$$ holds $$e_i \geq 5$$.

Note: In different books you might find different approximation conditions, please feel free to add further ones.

The degrees of freedom can be computed by the numbers of absolute observed frequencies which can be chosen freely. We know that the sum of absolute expected frequencies is

$$ \sum_i o_i = n $$

which means that the maximum number of degrees of freedom is $$I-1$$. We might have to subtract from the number of degrees of freedom the number of parameters we need to estimate from the sample, since this implies further relationships between the observed frequencies.

Derivation of the distribution of the test statistic
Following Boero, Smith and Wallis (2002) we need knowledge about multivariate statistics to understand the derivation.

The random variable $$O$$ describing the absolute observed frequencies $$(o_1, ..., o_k)$$ in a sample has a multinomial distribution $$O \sim M(n;p_1,...,p_k)$$ with $$n$$ the number of observations in the sample, $$p_i$$ the unknown true probabilities. With certain approximation conditions (central limit theorem) it holds that

$$O \sim M(n; p_1,...,p_k) \approx N_k(\mu;\Sigma)$$

with $$N_k$$ the multivariate $$k$$ dimensional normal distribution, $$\mu = (np_1,...,np_k)$$ and

$$\Sigma = (\sigma_{ij})_{i,j=1,...,k} = \begin{cases} -np_ip_j, & \mbox{if } i\neq j \\ np_i(1-p_i) & \mbox{otherwise} \end{cases}$$.

The covariance matrix $$\Sigma$$ has only rank $$k-1$$, since $$p_1+...+p_k = 1$$.

If we considered the generalized inverse $$\Sigma^-$$ then it holds that

$$(O-\mu)^T \Sigma^- (O-\mu) = \sum_i \frac{(o_i-e_i)^2}{e_i} \sim \chi^2_{k-1}$$

distributed (for a proof see Pringle and Rayner, 1971).

Since the multinomial distribution is approximately multivariate normal distributed, the term is

$$\sum_i \frac{(o_i-e_i)^2}{e_i} \approx \chi^2_{k-1}$$

distributed. If further relations between the observed probabilities are there then the rank of $$\Sigma$$ will decrease further.

A common situation is that parameters on which the expected probabilities depend needs to be estimated from the observed data. As said above, usually is stated that the degrees of freedom for the chi square distribution is $$k-1-r$$ with $$r$$ the number of estimated parameters. In case of parameter estimation with the maximum-likelihood method this is only true if the estimator is efficient (Chernoff and Lehmann, 1954). In general it holds that degrees of freedom are somewhere between $$k-1-r$$ and $$k-1$$.

Examples
The most famous examples will be handled in detail at further sections: $$\chi^2$$ test for independence, $$\chi^2$$ test for homogeneity and $$\chi^2$$ test for distributions.

The $$\chi^2$$ test can be used to generate "quick and dirty" test, e.g.

$$H_0:$$ The random variable $$X$$ is symmetrically distributed versus

$$H_1:$$ the random variable $$X$$ is not symmetrically distributed.

We know that in case of a symmetrical distribution the arithmetic mean $$\bar{x}$$ and median should be nearly the same. So a simple way to test this hypothesis would be to count how many observations are less than the mean ($$n_-$$)and how many observations are larger than the arithmetic mean ($$n_+$$). If mean and median are the same than 50% of the observation should smaller than the mean and 50% should be larger than the mean. It holds

$$V = \frac{(n_- - n/2)^2}{n/2} + \frac{(n_+ - n/2)^2}{n/2} \approx \chi^2_1$$.

title: Statistics/Testing Data/Chi-SquaredTest


text:
IB English

IB English A Free Online Study Guide

Contents

 * 1) Introduction to the Guide
 * 2) How to use this Guide
 * 3) Chapter 1 ~ How to write a Commentary
 * 4) Chapter 2 ~ How to prepare for Paper II
 * 5) *Notes on The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
 * 6) *Notes on One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
 * 7) *Notes on Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
 * 8) Chapter 3 ~ World Literature
 * 9) *How to write a good World Literature paper.
 * 10) Chapter 4 ~ How to do your IOP

title: IB English


text:
Arimaa/Elephant and Camel Attacks

 * 1) /Objectives and Risks/
 * 2) /Ideal Placement of Pieces/
 * 3) /Defensive Systems and Counter-Attacks/
 * 4) /Ideas for Setup/
 * 5) /If Enemy Camel Has Been Trapped/
 * 6) /Illustrative Games/

title: Arimaa/Elephant and Camel Attacks


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Wikijunior talk:Big Cats/Keeping cats

Okay, the pictures are cool and all, but should we include a picture of people petting a wild animal? -- user:zanimum

 * Enrichment is becoming more and more recognized as central to the health and wellbeing of captive animals. There is no need to hide from kids that animals can form attachments to human caretakers.  We do remind them, though, that only qualified, trained people do this and that it is a measured occupational hazard.  John Burkitt 22:16, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

title: Wikijunior talk:Big Cats/Keeping cats


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Internet over GPRS on BSNL South India Prepaid Connection and Nokia 3650 Phone

Connecting to the Internet using BSNL Prepaid GPRS
BSNL has come out with the option of GPRS over the prepaid connection. But difficulties were faced by many to connect to the Internet. Even the settings that were downloaded from BSNL site failed the phone to connect to the Internet. The following is the actual working settings on a Nokia3650 phone so that it would connect through GPRS. Steps to be followed to browse Internet over GPRS using a BSNL South India Prepaid Connection: - Connection Name              -> BSNL GPRS - Data Bearer                  -> GPRS - Access Point Name            -> bsnlnet - User Name                    -> - Prompt Password              -> No - Password                     -> - Authentication               -> Normal - Gateway IP Address           -> - Homepage                     -> http://bsnl.co.in/ - Connection Security          -> On - Session Mode                 -> Permanent
 * Message “GPRSPRE” (SMS)  to 53733.
 * After sometime (may take up to 48 hrs) a message would be received saying that GPRS has been activated for the phone.
 * Press the menu button of your phone; go to Tools -> Settings -> Connection -> Access Points.
 * Click on Options. Select New Access Point -> Use Default Settings
 * Give the following values:
 * Press Back. A new access point is created now.
 * Now using the default browser that came with the phone or with the custom browser installed later Internet could be accessed over the GPRS.
 * If the default browser is used, open it and click on Options, go to settings and select the default access point as BSNL GPRS. Modify the remaining options if needed.
 * Now this browser can be used to browse the Internet.

Using a phone with in built modem one can browse the Internet using their computer. The following steps should be followed to use a computer and connect to the Internet using the BSNL GPRS connection on the phone. The following settings are for a Windows XP computer. - Click Next - Select Connect to the Internet and click Next. - Select Set up my connection manually and click Next. - Select Connect using a dial-up modem and click Next. - Enter “BSNL GPRS” in the ISP Name text box and click Next. - Enter “*99#” in the Phone Number text box and click Next. - Chose the connection availability as per your discretion and click Next. - Leave User name and password blank. Uncheck the check boxes if needed and click Next. - Tick the check box to have a short cut on your desktop and click Finish. These procedures and settings help the BSNL subscriber to connect to the Internet over GPRS using a BSNL South India prepaid account. The above procedure works equally well for Post paid subscribers and for connection to PC/ laptop with USB cable.Specially useful for heavy users who have subscribed to BSNL post paid unlimited GPRS usage.
 * Connect the bluetooth dongle to a USB port of the computer and install any drivers if required.
 * Pair your phone and the PC over bluetooth. (For exact details of how to pair the PC and your phone, please refer to the user manual that came with the PC and the phone.)
 * Once pairing is over the computer would recognize the phone as a modem over bluetooth connection also and will start the services required for it over a particular COM port.
 * Now Open System Properties (Win Key + Pause/Break is the easiest way to do this). Click on Hardware tab and then on Device Manager button.
 * This will open a window where all the hardware on your PC is listed. Click the ‘+’ to expand the Modems and select the “Standard Modem over Bluetooth link #x”
 * Double click on it. The Properties window for this modem willopen. Click on Advanced tab. In the Extra Initialization Commands textbox fill – “AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","bsnlsouth"” .Without this string the computer will not connect to the Internet, but it will throw a PPP Link error. Please note that the “bsnlsouth” mentioned above is the access point name in your GPRS connection settings of your phone. (or gprssouth.cellone.in)
 * Click OK, close the Device Manager. * Go to Control Panel -> Network Connections. Click File -> New Connection. In the New Connection Wizard that comes up, follow these steps:
 * Switch on the bluetooth radio of the phone.
 * Now double click on this connection’s icon and click on dial. It will dial and connect the computer to the internet!!!

I used the same settings on a Sony Ericsson Z550i and it gets connected without much difficulty.

Also works with Samsung E-840 using the access point 'gprssouth.cellone.in'.


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Online OsiriX Documentation/How to Generate DSA Images

There are two ways to generate Digital Subtraction Angiography images with OsiriX (v1.7), once an XA image sequence has been stored in its database (an example sequence can be found at http://homepage.mac.com/kieranmaher/Anonymized.zip):

1. Using the Subtraction module

Display the image sequence in the 2D Viewer and activate the subtraction module (use Format | Customize Toolbar... if this module is not displayed in the toolbar of the 2D Viewer).

The image number used for the mask image is displayed – the first image of the sequence is the default mask. Browse through the sequence and adjust the WL/WW as needed. Click on the ‘current’ button to select another mask image.

Use the up/down arrows to shift the relative position of the mask and live images in single pixel increments in both horizontal (X) and vertical (Y) dimensions, if needed.

Note than finer shifts than whole pixels are a feature yet to be implemented in OsiriX.

Use the Thick Slab module, in the MinIP mode to (effectively) integrate a number of live images so as to generate a vascular trace.

Notes:

Pixel values displayed for subtracted images refer (incorrectly) to unsubtracted images – presumably because the subtracted image is generated in display memory only.

A plug-in is available from http://homepage.mac.com/kieranmaher/LogTransformplugin.zip (for purists) to take the Log Transform of an image sequence prior to running the subtraction process.

2. Using the Fusion module
Open an image sequence in the 2D Viewer, and open the same sequence for a second time, so that the image sequence is displayed in two separate windows. Turn off synchronization by selecting 2D Viewer | Stack Syncronize | Off. Drag the icon of one window and drop it onto the image in the second window to call up the fusion functions and click the Subtraction button:

Pixel values displayed for subtracted images refer (correctly) to subtracted images with this option, although pixel shifting is not available. The Thick Slab module can be used to (effectively) integrate both mask images (before subtraction) and live images (before and following subtraction) so as to improve image SNR and to generate a vascular trace.


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Afrikaans/Pronunciation

Afrikaans uses the same alphabet as English. Notable differences include diacritics on the letters (like ê), while certain letters, such as c, exist but are infrequently used.

You'll soon find Afrikaans has a very phonetic (phonemic) spelling; that is, unlike in English, French or even its parent language Dutch, Afrikaans words are almost always spelled the way they sound.

This chart uses IPA - the international phonetic alphabet to show the exact Afrikaans pronunciation. You can read more about it here. The English words are only an approximate guide. Afrikaans pronunciation can be a bit tricky for English speakers because the language has quite a few sounds that don't exist in English. The best way to learn is to listen to native Afrikaans speakers. You can listen to streaming Afrikaans radio here and hear Afrikaans sound recordings at this site.

<>

title: Afrikaans/Pronunciation


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User:KieranMaher

Content removed because of an administrator's advice about spammers

title: User:KieranMaher


text:
Rhetoric and Composition/Hyphens and Dashes

Dashes ("—", "–") are used to mark an interruption within a sentence, while hyphens ("-") are used to join two parts of a compound word, or to indicate that a word has been split at the end of a line. A dash is approximately as long as two hyphens.

Dash
Dashes are minus-shaped characters used to mark an interruption within a sentence. They are used in much the same way as parentheses.

There are two kinds of dashes: em dashes looking like "—", and shorter en dashes looking like "–". It is usual to either use em dashes without spacing, or en dashes with spacing, but not em dashes with spacing, as shown in the following two examples:
 * Example: Three unlikely companions—a canary, an eagle, and a parrot—flew by my window in an odd flock.
 * Example: Three unlikely companions – a canary, an eagle, and a parrot – flew by my window in an odd flock.

In most word processors, there is a keystroke combination that will produce an em-dash:
 * Windows: em-dash: Alt-0151.
 * Windows: en-dash: Alt-0150.
 * Mac: em-dash: shift-option-dash.

Hyphen
A hyphen joins two parts of a compound word.
 * Example: governor-elect, twenty-five, half-baked.

Hyphens can also be used to make compound words more understandable. Consider these words:
 * Man-eating dog
 * Man eating dog

The first example describes a particular type of dog (man-eating). The second example, alas, suggests that a man is eating a dog.

Or consider the case of the flaming-red pickup truck, as opposed to its more alarming cousin, the flaming red pickup truck.

In general, if the first of two adjectives is describing the second, and not the noun following, you should use a hyphen: deep-blue water, good-tasting hamburger, happy-faced child.

Width Difference
The em dash is roughly as wide as two hyphens. In the days of typewriters, it was actually written as two hyphens. An en dash is shorter than em dash while wider than a hyphen.


text:
User:ZS~enwikibooks

Nothing here. See User:ZS instead.

title: User:ZS~enwikibooks


text:
Cookbook:Bison Loaf

| Meat and Poultry | Bison

Bison loaf is a meat loaf made from bison instead of beef.

Ingredients

 * 2 pounds (900 g) ground bison meat
 * 1½ cups soft bread crumbs (from about 2 slices of bread) or ½ cup fine dry bread crumbs
 * 1 egg
 * ½ cup 1% milk
 * ½ cup chopped onion
 * ½ medium green pepper, chopped
 * 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce (optional)
 * 1 teaspoon garlic powder
 * ½ teaspoon salt
 * ½ teaspoon pepper

Procedure

 * 1) In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together.
 * 2) Form meat mixture into a loaf or pat into a lightly-oiled loaf pan.
 * 3) Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 45 minutes until internal temperature reaches 160°F (72°C).

Notes, tips, and variations

 * This recipe is from the public domain U.S. Department of Agriculture FDPIR Commodity Fact Sheet Bison, ground or stew meat, frozen (pdf).

title: Cookbook:Bison Loaf