Terms Used In U.S. Code > Title 15 > Chapter 6 > Subchapter II - Metric Conversion

• Administration: means the Social Security Administration, except where the context requires otherwise. See 42 USC 1301
• administrative costs: means costs for the following, but only to the extent incurred in administering the State plan developed pursuant to this subpart: procurement, payroll management, personnel functions (other than the portion of the salaries of supervisors attributable to time spent directly supervising the provision of services by caseworkers), management, maintenance and operation of space and property, data processing and computer services, accounting, budgeting, auditing, and travel expenses (except those related to the provision of services by caseworkers or the oversight of programs funded under this subpart). See 42 USC 622
• Advice and consent: Under the Constitution, presidential nominations for executive and judicial posts take effect only when confirmed by the Senate, and international treaties become effective only when the Senate approves them by a two-thirds vote.
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• association: when used in reference to a corporation, shall be deemed to embrace the words "successors and assigns of such company or association" in like manner as if these last-named words, or words of similar import, were expressed. See 1 USC 5
• Baseline: Projection of the receipts, outlays, and other budget amounts that would ensue in the future without any change in existing policy. Baseline projections are used to gauge the extent to which proposed legislation, if enacted into law, would alter current spending and revenue levels.
• Bequest: Property gifted by will.
• Board: means the United States Metric Board, established under section 205d of this title. See 15 USC 205c
• collective work: is a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology, or encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. See 17 USC 101
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• compilation: includes collective works. See 17 USC 101
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• copies: includes the material object, other than a phonorecord, in which the work is first fixed. See 17 USC 101
• Copyright Royalty Judge: is a Copyright Royalty Judge appointed under section 802 of this title, and includes any individual serving as an interim Copyright Royalty Judge under such section. See 17 USC 101
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• cost or pricing data or price analysis: has the meaning given such terms in section 3501(a) of title 41. See 15 USC 205c
• county: includes a parish, or any other equivalent subdivision of a State or Territory of the United States. See 1 USC 2
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• derivative work: is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. See 17 USC 101
• Devise: To gift property by will.
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• engineering standard: means a standard which prescribes (A) a concise set of conditions and requirements that must be satisfied by a material, product, process, procedure, convention, or test method. See 15 USC 205c
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• establishment: is a store, shop, or any similar place of business open to the general public for the primary purpose of selling goods or services in which the majority of the gross square feet of space that is nonresidential is used for that purpose, and in which nondramatic musical works are performed publicly. See 17 USC 101
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Executive session: A portion of the Senate's daily session in which it considers executive business.
• Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands in a transaction between a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller.
• Federal facility: means any public building (as defined under section 3301(a) of title 40 ¹ and shall include any Federal building or construction project&mdash. See 15 USC 205c
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• food service or drinking establishment: is a restaurant, inn, bar, tavern, or any other similar place of business in which the public or patrons assemble for the primary purpose of being served food or drink, in which the majority of the gross square feet of space that is nonresidential is used for that purpose, and in which nondramatic musical works are performed publicly. See 17 USC 101
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• hard-metric: means measurement, design, and manufacture using the metric system of measurement, but does not include measurement, design, and manufacture using English system measurement units which are subsequently reexpressed in the metric system of measurement. See 15 USC 205c
• including: when used in a definition contained in this chapter shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined. See 42 USC 1301
• individual: shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development. See 1 USC 8
• Interest rate: The amount paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender's money for a certain period of time. Interest is paid on loans or on debt instruments, such as notes or bonds, either at regular intervals or as part of a lump sum payment when the issue matures. ^{Source: OCC}
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Legacy: A gift of property made by will.
• Lineal descendant: Direct descendant of the same ancestors.
• metric system of measurement: means the International System of Units as established by the General Conference of Weights and Measures in 1960 and as interpreted or modified for the United States by the Secretary of Commerce. See 15 USC 205c
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Native Hawaiian: as used in this subchapter , means a descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to the year 1778. See 16 USC 410jj-6
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• officer: includes any person authorized by law to perform the duties of the office. See 1 USC 1
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• phonorecords: includes the material object in which the sounds are first fixed. See 17 USC 101
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• proprietor: is a n individual, corporation, partnership, or other entity, as the case may be, that owns an establishment or a food service or drinking establishment, except that no owner or operator of a radio or television station licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, cable system or satellite carrier, cable or satellite carrier service or programmer, provider of online services or network access or the operator of facilities therefor, telecommunications company, or any other such audio or audiovisual service or programmer now known or as may be developed in the future, commercial subscription music service, or owner or operator of any other transmission service, shall under any circumstances be deemed to be a proprietor. See 17 USC 101
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Public law: A public bill or joint resolution that has passed both chambers and been enacted into law. Public laws have general applicability nationwide.
• publicly: means &mdash. See 17 USC 101
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Remand: When an appellate court sends a case back to a lower court for further proceedings.
• Secretary: means the Secretary of Health and Human Services. See 42 USC 201
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• State: means a State, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any other territory or possession of the United States. See 1 USC 7
• State: when used in such subchapters (but not in subchapter XVI as in effect pursuant to such amendment after December 31, 1973) includes Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam. See 42 USC 1301
• State: includes , in addition to the several States, only the District of Columbia, Guam, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. See 42 USC 201
• subscription: includes a mark when the person making the same intended it as such. See 1 USC 1
• supplementary work: is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an "instructional text" is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities. See 17 USC 101
• Tort: A civil wrong or breach of a duty to another person, as outlined by law. A very common tort is negligent operation of a motor vehicle that results in property damage and personal injury in an automobile accident.
• total installed price: means the price of purchasing a product or material, trimming or otherwise altering some or all of that product or material, if necessary to fit with other building components, and then installing that product or material into a Federal facility. See 15 USC 205c
• Transcript: A written, word-for-word record of what was said, either in a proceeding such as a trial or during some other conversation, as in a transcript of a hearing or oral deposition.
• treaty party: is a country or intergovernmental organization other than the United States that is a party to an international agreement. See 17 USC 101
• United States: when used in a geographical sense, comprises the several States, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the organized territories under the jurisdiction of the United States Government. See 17 USC 101
• United States: means (but only for purposes of subparagraphs (A) and (B) of this paragraph) the fifty States and the District of Columbia. See 42 USC 1301
• useful article: is a n article having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. See 17 USC 101
• vehicle: includes every description of carriage or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on land. See 1 USC 4
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.
• vessel: includes every description of watercraft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water. See 1 USC 3
• work of the United States Government: is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties. See 17 USC 101
• writing: includes printing and typewriting and reproductions of visual symbols by photographing, multigraphing, mimeographing, manifolding, or otherwise. See 1 USC 1