claim

To demand as one's own or as one's right; to assert; to urge; to insist. A cause of action. Means by or through which claimant obtains possession or enjoyment of privilege or thing. Demand for money or property as of right, e.g. insurance claim. U.S. v. Tieger, D.C.N.J., 138 F.Supp. 709, 710.

With respect to claims to a negotiable instrument of which a holder in due course takes free, the term "claim" means any interest or remedy recognized in law or equity that creates in the claimant a right to the interest or its proceeds. Right to payment, whether or not such right is reduced to judgment, liquidated, unliquidated, fixed, contingent, matured, unmatured, disputed, undisputed, legal, equitable, secured, or unsecured; or right to an equitable remedy for breach of performance if such breach gives rise to a right to payment, whether or not such right to an equitable remedy is reduced to judgment, fixed, contingent, matured, unmatured, disputed, undisputed, secured, or unsecured. Bankruptcy Code, No. 101.

In conflicts of law, a receiver may be appointed in any state which has jurisdiction over the defendant who owes a claim. Restatement, Second, Conflicts, No. 369.

In patent law, a claim is an assertion of what the invention purports to accomplish, and claims of a patent define the invention and the extent of the grant; any feature of an invention not stated in the claim is beyond the scope of patent protection. Smith v. ACME General Corp., C.A.Ohio, 614 F.2d 1086, 1088.

See also antecedent claim

- cause of action

- community debt

- complaint

- counterclaim

- cross-claim

- false claim

- joinder

- liability

- liquidated claim

- third party complaint.

For proof of claim, see proof;

for joinder of claims, see joinder