“[W]hen a reference fully discloses in every detail the subject matter of a claim, the statutory basis of a rejection on that reference is 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) if the reference date is before the applicant’s date of invention, thereby establishing want of novelty, and section 102(b) if the reference date is more than one year prior to the actual United States filing date, thereby establishing a so-called ‘statutory bar,’ more accurately, a one-year time-bar which results in loss of right to a patent, regardless of when the invention was made.”
How later courts described this case
- “[W]hen a reference fully discloses in every detail the subject matter of a claim, the statutory basis of a rejection on that reference is 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) if the reference date is before the applicant’s date of invention, thereby establishing want of novelty, and section 102(b) if the reference date is more than one year prior to the actual United States filing date, thereby establishing a so-called ‘statutory bar,’ more accurately, a one-year time-bar which results in loss of right to a patent, regardless of when the invention was made.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
RICH, Judge
(concurring).
In view of the opening remarks of Judge Smith’s dissent and because of the unusually long time the decision in this case has been gestating, I merely wish to record the fact that last August I first developed the tentative view that we committed an error of law in Palmquist and became firmly convinced of it and of its exact nature in early October after reviewing the Palmquist record. • I regret that until then I had not fully appreciated the explicit and detailed reliance by the examiner in that case on the existence of a one-year bar and on 35 U.S.C. § 102 (b) as the basis of his rejection.