{"data":{"id":"us/37-cfr-104.1","jurisdiction":"us","citation":"37 CFR 104.1","heading":"Definitions.","body":"Demand means a request, order, or subpoena for testimony or documents for use in a legal proceeding.\nDirector means the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (see § 1.9(j)).\nDocument means any record, paper, and other property held by the Office, including without limitation, official letters, telegrams, memoranda, reports, studies, calendar and diary entries, maps, graphs, pamphlets, notes, charts, tabulations, analyses, statistical or informational accumulations, any kind of summaries of meetings and conversations, film impressions, magnetic tapes, and sound or mechanical reproductions.\nEmployee means any current or former officer or employee of the Office.\nLegal proceeding means any pretrial, trial, and posttrial stages of existing or reasonably anticipated judicial or administrative actions, hearings, investigations, or similar proceedings before courts, commissions, boards or other tribunals, foreign or domestic. This phrase includes all phases of discovery as well as responses to formal or informal requests by attorneys or others involved in legal proceedings.\nOffice means the United States Patent and Trademark Office, including any operating unit in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and its predecessors, the Patent Office and the Patent and Trademark Office.\nOfficial business means the authorized business of the Office.\nGeneral Counsel means the General Counsel of the Office.\nTestimony means a statement in any form, including personal appearances before a court or other legal tribunal, interviews, depositions, telephonic, televised, or videotaped statements or any responses given during discovery or similar proceedings, which response would involve more than the production of documents, including a declaration under 35 U.S.C. 25 or 28 U.S.C. 1746.\nUnited States means the Federal Government, its departments and agencies, individuals acting on behalf of the Federal Government, and parties to the extent they are represented by the United States.","path":["Title 37—Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights","CHAPTER I—UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE","SUBCHAPTER B—ADMINISTRATION","PART 104—LEGAL PROCESSES","Subpart A—General Provisions"],"source_url":"https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2026-08-25/title-37.xml","current_through":"2026-08-25","vintage":"","retrieved_at":"2026-08-27T02:25:45Z","sha256":"85f4c6ba2e1e134e7b7098c013bf0804b3aab43e7424b11b84fa37c828f5665b","source_id":"us-cfr","stale":true,"prev":"us/37-cfr-appendix-to-part-102","next":"us/37-cfr-104.2"},"notice":"GroundRules: Original legal text. Not legal advice."}