Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 33.2 > Subtitle I > Chapter 2 > Article 6 - Virginia Passenger Rail Authority Act.

• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Assertion of patent infringement: means (i) sending or delivering a demand letter to a target; (ii) threatening a target with litigation asserting, alleging, or claiming that the target has engaged in patent infringement; (iii) sending or delivering a demand letter to the customers of a target; or (iv) otherwise making claims or allegations, other than those made in litigation against a target, that a target has engaged in patent infringement or that a target should obtain a license to a patent in order to avoid litigation. See Virginia Code 59.1-215.1
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Authority: means the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority. See Virginia Code 33.2-287
• Automatic renewal: means a plan or arrangement in which a paid subscription or purchasing agreement is automatically renewed at the end of a definite term for a subsequent term of more than one month. See Virginia Code 59.1-207.45
• Automatic renewal offer terms: means the following clear and conspicuous disclosures:

  1. See Virginia Code 59.1-207.45

• Board: means the Board of Directors of the Authority. See Virginia Code 33.2-287
• Bonds: means the revenue notes, bonds, certificates, and other evidences of indebtedness or obligations of the Authority. See Virginia Code 33.2-287
• City: means an independent incorporated community which became a city as provided by law before noon on July 1, 1971, or which has within defined boundaries a population of 5,000 or more and which has become a city as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-208
• City: has the meaning assigned to it in § 1-208. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• comparison price: means the direct or indirect comparison in any advertisement whether or not expressed wholly or in part in dollars, cents, fractions, or percentages, and whether or not such price is actually stated in the advertisement. See Virginia Code 59.1-207.40
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Consumer: means (i) any individual who seeks or acquires, by purchase or lease, any goods, services, money, or credit for personal, family, or household purposes or (ii) any small business that seeks or acquires, by purchase or lease, any goods, services, money, or credit for business purposes. See Virginia Code 59.1-207.45
• Continuous service: means a plan or arrangement in which a subscription or purchasing agreement continues until the consumer cancels the service. See Virginia Code 59.1-207.45
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Contract for invention development services: means a contract by which an invention developer undertakes invention development services for a customer. See Virginia Code 59.1-208
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Cost: means , as applied to rail facilities, (i) the cost of construction; (ii) the cost of acquisition of all lands, structures, fixtures, rights-of-way, franchises, easements, and other property rights and interests; (iii) the cost of demolishing, removing, or relocating any buildings, structures, or fixtures on lands acquired, including the cost of acquiring any lands to which such buildings, structures, or fixtures may be moved or relocated; (iv) the cost of all labor, materials, machinery, and equipment; (v) financing charges and interest on all bonds prior to and during construction and for one year after completion of construction; (vi) the cost of engineering, financial, and legal services, plans, specifications, studies, surveys, estimates of cost and of revenues, and other expenses incidental to determining the feasibility of acquiring, constructing, operating, or maintaining rail facilities; (vii) administrative expenses, provisions for working capital, and reserves for interest and for extensions, enlargements, additions, and improvements; and (viii) such other expenses as may be necessary or incidental to the acquisition, construction, financing, operations, and maintenance of rail facilities. See Virginia Code 33.2-287
• Customer: means any person, firm, partnership, corporation, or other entity that enters into a contract for invention development services with an invention developer. See Virginia Code 59.1-208
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Demand letter: means a letter, email, or other communication asserting, alleging, or claiming that the target has engaged in patent infringement, or that a target should obtain a license to a patent in order to avoid litigation, or any similar assertion. See Virginia Code 59.1-215.1
• Department: means the Department of Rail and Public Transportation. See Virginia Code 33.2-287
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Ex officio: Literally, by virtue of one's office.
• Ex officio: means service by virtue of one's office and includes voting privileges for ex officio members unless otherwise provided. See Virginia Code 1-215
• Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands in a transaction between a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller.
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Freedom of Information Act: A federal law that mandates that all the records created and kept by federal agencies in the executive branch of government must be open for public inspection and copying. The only exceptions are those records that fall into one of nine exempted categories listed in the statute. ^{Source: OCC}
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Highway: means the entire width between the boundary lines of every way or place open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel in the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• in writing: include any representation of words, letters, symbols, numbers, or figures, whether (i) printed or inscribed on a tangible medium or (ii) stored in an electronic or other medium and retrievable in a perceivable form and whether an electronic signature authorized by Virginia Code 1-257
• Includes: means includes, but not limited to. See Virginia Code 1-218
• Invention: means a discovery, process, machine, design, formulation, product, concept or idea or any combination thereof. See Virginia Code 59.1-208
• Invention developer: means any person, firm, partnership, corporation, and any agent, employee, officer, partner or independent contractor thereof, that advertises invention development services in media of general circulation or that contracts with customers procured as a result of such advertisement. See Virginia Code 59.1-208
• Invention development: means the evaluation, perfection, marketing, brokering, or promotion of an invention by an invention developer, including a patent search, preparation of a patent application, or any other act done by an invention developer for consideration toward the end of procuring or attempting to procure a license, buyer or patent for an invention, but shall not include those acts undertaken by attorneys in the practice of their profession, other persons duly registered to practice before the U. See Virginia Code 59.1-208
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Locality: has the meaning assigned to it in § 1-221. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• Maintenance: means (i) ordinary maintenance; (ii) maintenance replacement; (iii) operations that include traffic signal synchronization, incident management, and other intelligent transportation system functions; and (iv) any other categories of maintenance that may be designated by the Commissioner of Highways. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• Month: means a calendar month and "year" means a calendar year. See Virginia Code 1-223
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Municipality: has the meaning assigned to it in § 1-224. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• National Bank: A bank that is subject to the supervision of the Comptroller of the Currency. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department. A national bank can be recognized because it must have "national" or "national association" in its name. ^{Source: OCC}
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Patent infringement: means any conduct that constitutes infringement pursuant to applicable law, including Virginia Code 59.1-215.1
• Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Process: includes subpoenas, the summons and complaint in a civil action, and process in statutory actions. See Virginia Code 1-237
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• Rail facilities: includes all property or interests necessary or convenient for the acquiring, providing, using, equipping, or maintaining of a rail facility or system, including right-of-way, trackwork, train controls, stations, and maintenance facilities. See Virginia Code 33.2-287
• real estate: includes lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights and appurtenances thereto and interests therein, other than a chattel interest. See Virginia Code 1-219
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Secretary: means the Secretary of Transportation. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Small business: means a business that is at least 51 percent independently owned and controlled by one or more individuals, or in the case of a cooperative association organized pursuant to Virginia Code 59.1-207.45
• State: includes District of Columbia;

  (f) "Transit facilities" means all real and personal property located in the Zone, necessary or useful in rendering transit service between points within the Zone, by means of rail, bus, water or air and any other mode of travel, including, without limitation, tracks, rights-of-way, bridges, tunnels, subways, rolling stock for rail, motor vehicle, marine and air transportation, stations, terminals and ports, areas for parking and all equipment, fixtures, buildings and structures and services incidental to or required in connection with the performance of transit service;

  (g) "Transit services" means the transportation of persons and their packages and baggage by means of transit facilities between points within the Zone including the transportation of newspapers, express and mail between such points, and charter service which originates within the Zone but does not include taxicab service or individual-ticket-sales sightseeing operations;

  (h) "Transit Zone" or "Zone" means the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Zone created and described in Section 3 as well as any additional area that may be added pursuant to Section 83(a) of this Compact; and

  (i) "WMATC" means Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission. See Virginia Code 33.2-3100

• State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
• Target: means a person residing in, conducting substantial business in, or having its principal place of business in the Commonwealth and with respect to whom an assertion of patent infringement is made. See Virginia Code 59.1-215.1
• Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July 1, 1971, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-254
• Transportation Board: means the Commonwealth Transportation Board. See Virginia Code 33.2-287
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• United States: includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-255