Catch and release

Catch and release is a practice within recreational fishing intended as a technique of conservation. After capture, the fish are unhooked and returned to the water. Often, a fast measurement and weighing of the fish is worthwhile. Using barbless hooks, it is often possible to release the fish without removing it from the water (a slack line is frequently sufficient).

History of practice

In the United Kingdom, catch and release has been performed for more than a century by coarse fishermen in order to prevent target species from disappearing in heavily fished waters. Since the latter part of the 20th century, many salmon and sea trout rivers have been converted to complete or partial catch and release.

In the United States, catch and release was first introduced as a management tool in the state of Michigan in 1952 as an effort to reduce the cost of stocking hatchery-raised trout. Anglers fishing for fun rather than for food accepted the idea of releasing the fish while fishing in so-called "no-kill" zones. Conservationists have advocated catch and release as a way to ensure sustainability and to avoid overfishing of fish stocks. Lee Wulff, a New York-based fly angler, author and film maker, promoted catch and release as early as 1936 with the phrase "Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once."Don Martinez a West Yellowstone, Montana fly shop owner promoted catch and release in his 1930-40s newsletters sent to Eastern anglers.

Glossary of patent law terms

This is a list of legal terms relating to patents. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention, but a territorial right to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention, granted to an inventor or his successor in rights in exchange to a public disclosure of the invention.

A

Abandonment

The reply of an applicant to an office action must be made within a prescribed time limit. If no reply is received within the time period, the application may be considered, depending on the jurisdiction, as abandoned or deemed to be withdrawn, and, therefore, no longer pending.

Annuity fee

A fee to be paid to maintain a patent or a patent application in force. Also called "maintenance fee" or "renewal fee".

Application

An application for a patent, or patent application, is a request by a person or company to the competent authority (usually a patent office) to grant him a patent. By extension, a patent application also refers to the content of the document which that person or company filed to initiate the application process. This document usually contains a description of the invention and at least one claim used to define the sought scope of protection.

Catch and release (U.S. immigration policy)

Catch and release is the unofficial name for a protocol historically followed by immigration enforcement agencies in the United States (specifically, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection) where people caught for being in unlawful immigration status are released while they wait for a hearing with an immigration judge. The policy officially ended in 2006 under President George W. Bush and United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, where it was replaced by a catch and return or catch and detain policy. However, some critics of immigration enforcement in subsequent years, particularly under the presidency of Barack Obama, have dubbed various policies and practices under the administration as catch-and-release policies.

History

Historical policy

Historically, due to the lack of resources available to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain people, as well as the lengthy time period between apprehension and being ordered deported, catch-and-release was the de facto policy followed by ICE: those believed to be in violation of immigration status were released and given a date when they were to appear before an immigration judge for their deportation hearing. Knowing that coming to a hearing could lead to them being deported, many of these people simply failed to turn up to their hearings. In July 2005, the National Center for Policy Analysis reported that at some federal immigration courts, 98% of the defendants failed to show up.