Texas Business and Commerce Code 52.002 – Definitions
Terms Used In Texas Business and Commerce Code 52.002
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- 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.
- Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
- 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.
- Person: includes corporation, organization, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, and any other legal entity. See Texas Government Code 311.005
- Property: means real and personal property. See Texas Government Code 311.005
- United States: includes a department, bureau, or other agency of the United States of America. See Texas Government Code 311.005
In this chapter:
(1) “Customer” means:
(A) an individual who enters into a contract with an invention developer for invention development services; or
(B) a firm, partnership, corporation, or other entity that enters into a contract with an invention developer for invention development services and is not purchasing those services as an adjunct to the traditional commercial enterprises in which the entity engages as a business.
(2) “Invention” means a discovery, process, machine, design, formulation, product, concept, idea, or any combination of these, regardless of whether patentable.
(3) “Invention developer” means an individual, firm, partnership, or corporation, or an agent, employee, officer, partner, or independent contractor of one of those entities, who:
(A) performs or offers to perform invention development services for a customer; and
(B) is not:
(i) a federal, state, or local government department or agency;
(ii) a nonprofit, charitable, scientific, or educational organization organized under the Texas Non-Profit Corporation Act (Article 1396-1.01 et seq., Vernon’s Texas Civil Statutes) or formed under Title 1 and Chapter 22, Business Organizations Code, or described by Section 170(b)(1)(A), Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended;
(iii) an attorney acting within the scope of the attorney’s professional license;
(iv) a person registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and acting within the scope of that person’s professional license; or
(v) a person, firm, corporation, association, or other entity that does not charge a fee, including reimbursement for expenditures made or costs incurred by the entity, for invention development services other than payment made from a portion of the income a customer received by virtue of an act performed by the entity.
(4) “Invention development services” means an act done by or for an invention developer for the invention developer’s procurement or attempted procurement of a licensee or buyer of an intellectual property right in an invention, including:
(A) evaluating, perfecting, marketing, or brokering an invention;
(B) performing a patent search; and
(C) preparing or prosecuting a patent application by a person not registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.