ANTICIPATION
anticipation. 1. The distribution or receipt of trust income before it is due. 2.Patents. The
prior invention or disclosure of the claimed invention by another, or the inventor’s own disclosure
of the claimed invention by publication, sale, or offer to sell if that disclosure predates the date of
the patent-application filing by more than one year. • By disproving the claim’s novelty,
anticipation bars the allowance of a claim and provides a defense to an action for infringement
based on that claim. See NOVELTY(2). [Cases: Patents 50.1. C.J.S. Patents §§ 37, 40.] —
anticipate,vb.
“Anticipation implies spoiling something for someone, by getting in ahead; obviously this
can only be done by a device (or description of a device), and only to a patent.” Roger Sherman
Hoar, Patent Tactics and the Law 51 (3d ed. 1950). [Blacks Law 8th]