RECONSTRUCTION
reconstruction. 1. The act or process of rebuilding, re-creating, or reorganizing something
<an expert in accident reconstruction>.2.Patents. A rebuilding of a broken, worn-out, or otherwise
inoperative patented article in such a way that a new article is created, thus resulting in an
infringement <the replacement of the machine’s essential parts was an infringing reconstruction
rather than a permissible repair>. Cf. REPAIR DOCTRINE . [Cases: Patents 255. C.J.S. Patents
- 405.] 3. (cap.) The process by which the Southern states that had seceded during the Civil War
were readmitted into the Union during the years following the war (i.e., from 1865 to 1877) <the
13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are a lasting legacy of Reconstruction>. [Blacks Law 8th]