1. The act or process of rebuilding, re-creating, or reorganizing something (an expert in accident reconstruction).
2. Patents. A rebuilding of a broken, worn-out, or otherwise inoperative patented article in such a way that a new article is created, thus resulting in an infringement (the replacement of the machine’s essential parts was an infringing reconstruction rather than a permissible repair). Cf. REPAIR DOCTRINE . [Cases: Patents 255. C.J.S. Patents § 405.]
3. (cap.) The process by which the Southern states that had seceded during the Civil War were readmitted into the Union during the years following the war (i.e., from 1865 to 1877) (the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are a lasting legacy of Reconstruction).
