What Does Past Due Mean? Past due refers to a payment that has not been made by its cutoff time at the end of its due date. A borrower who is past due will usually face some penalties and can be subject to late fees. Failure to repay a loan on time usually has negative
What Is Past Service? Past service refers to the period of employment prior to an employee’s participation in a pension plan. That period may exclude the employee from certain benefits that existed before they participated in the plan. Employees have the option to purchase past service, using cash or through a qualified retirement plan roll-over
What Is a Patent? A patent is the granting of a property right by a sovereign authority to an inventor. This grant provides the inventor exclusive rights to the patented process, design, or invention for a designated period in exchange for a comprehensive disclosure of the invention. They are a form of incorporeal right. Government agencies
What Is Patent Share? Patent share is the percentage share of a universe of patents owned or created by one subset of that universe. This term usually applies to a comparative share between nations. Patent share has been subdivided not only across nations, but within industry groups and even between companies relative to each other.
What Is a Patent Attorney? A patent attorney is a lawyer with expertise in intellectual property law pertaining to securing and protecting an inventor’s property rights. Patent attorneys have passed a federal exam referred to as the “patent bar exam” that grants them a license to represent clients before the United States Patent and Trademark
What Is a Patent Cliff? A patent cliff is a colloquialism to denote the potential sharp decline in revenues upon patent expiry of one or more leading products of a firm. A patent cliff is when a firm’s revenues could “fall off a cliff” when one or more established products go off-patent, since these products
What Is Patent Pending? The phrase patent pending is marked on a product as a notice that its inventor has begun the process of applying for exclusive rights to use, sell, or license the product. In the U.S., it means that a provisional patent application has been submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
What Is Paper Money? Paper money is a country’s official, paper currency that is circulated for the transactions involved in acquiring goods and services. The printing of paper money is typically regulated by a country’s central bank or treasury in order to keep the flow of funds in line with monetary policy. Paper money tends
What Is a Paper Dealer? A paper dealer is a market maker that stands ready to buy and sell extremely short-term corporate bonds called commercial paper or other money market instruments. A paper dealer is typically a large financial firm that has the capital and level of sophistication necessary to distribute commercial paper to investors
What Is a Paper Millionaire? A paper millionaire is an individual who has achieved a high net worth as a result of the large total market value of the assets they own. This phenomenon usually occurs when investors buy marketable securities that are later bid up to much higher prices on the open market. While
