IP Glossary: P

Revised 29 Jan 2017

Paris Convention	Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, a multilateral IP treaty made on 20 March 1883 relating to patents, trade marks, industrial designs and unfair competition.
Passing off	An action to restrain a trader from misrepresenting his goods, services or business as those of an established trader by using a trade mark, get-up or other indicia that is the same as or similar to that of the established trader.
Patent	An IPR, a  monopoly of a new invention, The right to prevent others from making, importing, disposing, using or keeping a patented product, using a patented process or making, importing or keeping products made by a patented process.
Patent Cooperation Treaty (“PCT”)	International agreement to facilitate multiple patent applications from a single filing.
Person skilled in the Art	The person or persons to whom a patent application is addressed. A person or team of persons with the skills and knowledge to make or  use an invention but not necessarily to invent the invention unless the invention was obvious,  A “person skilled in the art” is sometimes called “the skilled addressee” and in old law reports as “the man skilled in the art.”
Piracy	Copyright infringement on an industrial scale.
Prior Art	Sometimes called “the state of the art.”  Defined by s.2 (2) of the Patents Act 1977 “as all matter (whether a product, a process, information about either, or anything else) which has at any time before the priority date of that invention been made available to the public (whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) by written or oral description, by use or in any other way..”