specification

The act of specifying.

A detailed, exact statement of particulars, especially a statement prescribing materials, dimensions, and quality of work for something to be built, installed, or manufactured.

A single item or article that has been specified.

An exact written description of an invention by an applicant for a patent.

An act of specifying, or making a detailed statement, or the statement so made; a definite or formal mention of particulars: as, a specification of one’s requirements.

An article, item, or particular specified; a special point, detail, or reckoning upon which a claim, an accusation, an estimate, a plan, or an assertion is based: as, the specifications of an architect or an engineer, of an indictment, etc.; the specification of the third charge against a prisoner; statements unsupported by specifications.

The act of making specific, or the state of having a specific character; reference to or correlation with a species or kind; determination of species or specific relation.

In patent law, the applicant’s description of the manner of constructing and using his invention.

in civil law, the formation of a new property from materials belonging to another person. Specification exists where a person works up materials belonging to another into something which must be taken to be a new substance—for example, where whisky is made from corn. The effect is that the owner of the materials loses his property in them, and has only an action for the value of them against the person by whom they have been used. The doctrine originates in the civil law, but has been adopted by the common law, under the name of confusion and accession, at least where the person making the spccification acts in good faith.