Caveat emptor Caveat emptor Caveat emptor (, ) is Latin for "Let the buyer beware" (from "caveat", "may he beware", a subjunctive form of "cavēre", "to beware" + "ēmptor", "buyer"). Generally, "caveat emptor" is the contract law principle that controls the sale of real property after the date of closing, but may also apply to sales of other goods. The phrase "caveat emptor" and its use as a disclaimer of warranties arise from the fact that buyers typically have less information about the good or service they are purchasing, while the seller has more information. The quality of this situation is known
Patent caveat as the proposed patent, the Patent Office notified the holder of the caveat, who then had three months to submit a formal patent application with claims. If the two patent applications claimed the same invention, an interference would then be declared and neither patent could be issued until it was determined which was the first to invent. Perhaps the most famous example of such a conflict was on 14 February 1876, when Elisha Gray filed a patent caveat and Alexander Graham Bell filed a patent application on the same day, both relating to the telephone. Gray ended up abandoning his