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In United States patent law, those applying for a patent, i.e. applicants, and patentees may claim a particular status depending on the number of their employees. The fees to be paid to the patent office depend on the applicant's status. The statuses include the "large entity" status and the "small entity" status. The "micro entity" status is a further status, which was introduced with the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), enacted in 2011. The small entity status allows small businesses, independent inventors, nonprofit organizations to file a patent application and maintain an issued patent for a reduced fee—a 50% reduction. Under 13 C.F.R. § 121.802(a), an entity qualifies as a "small business concern", and so qualifies for small entity status, if its number of employees, including affiliates, does not exceed 500 persons. Small Business Administration (SBA) regulations, discussed below, define "employees" and "affiliates". If an organization or individual qualifies for small entity status, claiming such status is relatively simple. The person seeking such status needs to simply file a verified statement in the patent application prior to paying the first fee as a small entity. Any subsequent payments only need to include a statement where such status has changed. The concept of "small entity" also exist in other jurisdictions, such as in Canada.〔"...“small entity” means an entity that employs 50 or fewer employees or that is a university, but does not include an entity that is controlled directly or indirectly by an entity, other than a university, that employs more than 50 employees." in (Subsection 3.02 (2) of the (Canadian) Patent Rules )〕 ==Employees== An entity, including its affiliates, may have up to 500 employees before being disqualified for small-entity status. Federal regulations define what persons qualify as employees and over what time periods employee counts are made. All individuals employed on a full-time, part-time, or other basis are counted in determining a business concern's number of employees. 13 C.F.R. § 121.106(a). This includes employees obtained from a temporary employee agency, professional employee organization or leasing concern. The totality of the circumstances, including criteria used by the IRS for Federal income tax purposes, are considered in determining whether individuals are employees of a concern. Volunteers (i.e., individuals who receive no compensation, including no in-kind compensation, for work performed) are not considered employees. Part-time and temporary employees are counted the same as full-time employees. § 121.106(b)(2). Where the number of employees fluctuates over the course of a year, the number of employees may be taken to be the average number of employees over the preceding 12 calendar months. § 121.106(b)(1). The average number of employees of a business concern with affiliates is calculated by adding the average number of employees of the business concern with the average number of employees of each affiliate. § 121.106(b)(4)(i). If a concern has acquired an affiliate or been acquired as an affiliate during the applicable period of measurement or before the date on which it self-certified as small, the employees counted in determining size status include the employees of the acquired or acquiring concern. Furthermore, this aggregation applies for the entire period of measurement, not just the period after the affiliation arose. The employees of a former affiliate are not counted if affiliation ceased before the date used for determining size. § 121.106(b)(4)(ii). This exclusion of employees of a former affiliate applies during the entire period of measurement, rather than only for the period after which affiliation ceased. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Large and small entities in patent law」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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