patent troll

 In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art, often through hardball legal tactics (frivolous litigation, vexatious litigation, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP), chilling effects, and the like).

abalienation

 

abalienation (countable and uncountable, plural abalienations) (archaic)

1. (law) The act of abalienating; alienation; estrangement; transferring a legal title.

Estoppel

 Estoppel is a judicial device in common law legal systems whereby a court may prevent or "estop" a person from making assertions or from going back on his or her word; the person being sanctioned is "estopped".

Jus legationis

Jus legationis is a Legal Latin term meaning the capacity to send and receive consuls and diplomats.

sororate

sororate n

1. The custom of the marriage of a man to the sister of his wife, usually after the wife has died.
2. A marriage according to this custom.

depone

depone (third-person singular simple present depones, present participle deponing, simple past and past participle deponed)

1. (intransitive, law) To testify, especially in the form of a deposition.
2. (transitive, law) To take the deposition of; to depose.
3. To lay, as a stake; to wager.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Hudibras to this entry?)

4. To lay down.

bailiwick

A bailiwick is usually the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, and may also apply to a territory in which the sheriff's functions were exercised by a privately appointed bailiff under a royal or imperial writ. The word is now more generally used in a metaphorical sense, to indicate a sphere of authority, experience, activity, study or interest. A bailiwick (German: “Ballei”) was also the territorial division of the Teutonic Order. Here, various “Komtur(en)” formed a Ballei province.

The term survives in administrative usage in the British Crown dependencies of the Channel Islands, which for administrative purposes are grouped into the two bailiwicks of Jersey (comprising the island of Jersey and uninhabited islets such as the Minquiers and Écréhous) and Guernsey (comprising the islands of Guernsey, Sark, Alderney, Brecqhou, Herm, Jethou and Lihou). Each Channel Island bailiwick is headed by a Bailiff.

Usufruct

Usufruct is a right of enjoyment enabling a holder to derive profit or benefit from property that either is titled to another person or which is held in common ownership, as long as the property is not damaged or destroyed. In many usufructory property systems, such as the traditional ejido system in Mexico, individuals or groups may only acquire the usufruct of the property, not legal title.

illicit

illicit (comparative more illicit, superlative most illicit)

1. (law) Lacking licitness, but not invalid.

   The bigamous marriage, while illicit, was not invalid.

2. Breaking social norms.
3. Unlawful.

Usage notes

Licit and valid are legal terms to be compared, especially in terms of canon law. With bigamy, if there is an innocent party, the innocent party is validly married; the problem is with the guilty party, who has entered into an illegal second marriage without first divorcing the earlier spouse. The marriage is valid in canon law (and often, civil law), but the guilty party goes to jail nonetheless, in that the marriage is illicit (and illegal), and the innocent party routinely receives a fast annulment and the full sympathy of the court. A corollary is that the children born of such unions are inherently legitimate.

lawgiver

A lawgiver is a person who draws up, introduces, or enacts a code of laws for a nation or people.

Barratry

Barratry is a legal term with several meanings. In common law, barratry is the offense committed by people who are “overly officious in instigating or encouraging prosection of groundless litigation” or who bring “repeated or persistent acts of litigation” for the purposes of profit or harassment. It is a crime in some jurisdictions. Litigation for the purpose of profit is referred to as “Ambulance chasing”: If for the purpose of harassment, for example to silence critics, it is known as a Strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP). Many jurisdiction that otherwise have no barratry laws do have SLAPP laws.

Certiorari

Certiorari (/ˌsɜrʃⁱəˈrɛəraɪ/, /-ˈrɛəri/, or /-ˈrɑri/) is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law, meaning an order by a higher court directing a lower court, tribunal, or public authority to send the record in a given case for review.

Certiorari ("to be more fully informed") is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare ("to show, prove, or ascertain").

Sumptuary

Sumptuary laws (from Latin sumptuariae leges) are laws that attempt to regulate habits of consumption. Black's Law Dictionary defines them as "Laws made for the purpose of restraining luxury or extravagance, particularly against inordinate expenditures in the matter of apparel, food, furniture, etc." Traditionally, they were laws that regulated and reinforced social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures. In most times and places, they were ineffectual.

Throughout history, societies have used sumptuary laws for a variety of purposes. They attempted to regulate the balance of trade by limiting the market for expensive imported goods. They were also an easy way to identify social rank and privilege and often were used for social discrimination.

This frequently meant preventing commoners from imitating the appearance of aristocrats and sometimes also to stigmatize disfavored groups. In the Late Middle Ages, sumptuary laws were instituted as a way for the nobility to cap the conspicuous consumption of the prosperous bourgeoisie of medieval cities, and they continued to be used for these purposes well into the 17th century.

putative marriage

A putative marriage is an apparently valid marriage, entered into in good faith on the part of at least one of the partners, but that is legally invalid due to a technical impediment, such as a preexistent marriage on the part of one of the partners. Unlike someone in a common-law, statutory, or ceremonial marriage, a putative spouse is not legally married. Instead, a putative spouse believes himself or herself to be married in good faith and is given legal rights as a result of this person's reliance upon this good-faith belief.

Respondeat superior

Respondeat superior (Latin: "let the master answer"; plural: respondeant superiores) is a legal doctrine which states that, in many circumstances, an employer is responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their employment. This rule is also called the "Master-Servant Rule", recognized in both common law and civil law jurisdictions.

In a broader scope, respondeat superior is based upon the concept of vicarious liability.

affray

In many legal jurisdictions related to English common law, affray is a public order offence consisting of the fighting of two or more persons in a public place to the terror (in French: à l'effroi) of ordinary people (the lieges). Depending on their actions, and the laws of the prevailing jurisdiction, those engaged in an affray may also render themselves liable to prosecution for assault, unlawful assembly, or riot; if so, it is for one of these offences that they are usually charged.

Conservatorship

Conservatorship is a legal concept in the United States of America, where an entity or organization is subjected to the legal control of an external entity or organization, known as a conservator. Conservatorship is established either by court order (with regards to individuals) or via a statutory or regulatory authority (with regards to organizations). When referring to government control of private corporations such as Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, conservatorship implies a more temporary control than does nationalisation. In other legal terms, a conservatorship may refer to the legal responsibilities over a person who is mentally ill, including those who are psychotic, suicidal, incapacitated or is in some other way unable to make legal, medical or financial decisions on behalf of themselves.

Gravamen

Gravamen (from Lat. gravare, to weigh down; gravis, heavy), a complaint or grievance, the ground of a legal action, and particularly the more serious part of a charge against an accused person. In legal terms, the essential element of a lawsuit.

In English the term is used chiefly in legal submissions and judicial opinions. The word is commonly misspelled gravaman.

interdict

In Roman Catholic canon law, an interdict is an ecclesiastical censure that excludes from certain rites of the Church individuals or groups, who nonetheless do not cease to be members of the Church.

In Scottish law, "an interdict is a civil court order that tells a person not to do something or to stay away from you, your children or a specific place, such as your house. If a person doesn't stick to an interdict, the police might be able to arrest them if the interdict gives them the power to do so."

Mortsafes

Mortsafes were contraptions designed to protect the bodies of the dead from disturbance. There had been body-snatching close to the schools of anatomy in Scotland since the early 18th century. This was due to the necessity for medical students to learn anatomy by attending dissections of human subjects, which was frustrated by the very limited allowance of dead bodies - for example the corpses of executed criminals - granted by the government, which controlled the supply.