In re Klopfenstein and Brent (Fed. Cir. 2004) (three day poster presentation at academic conference without any paper distribution or indexing was a printed publication under 102(b)).
More than one year prior to filing their application, the inventors of a new method of peparing foods using extruded soy fiber presented a poster presentation at two academic conferences (for a total of less than 3 days). No copies of the presentation were distributed. The Patent Examine rejected the claims as anticipated by the prior publication. The applicants did not dispute that the presentation fully disclosed the invention. Rather applicants argued that the presentation was not a prior art publication under 35 USC 102(b).
The only question in this appeal is whether the Liu reference constitutes a “printed publication” for the purposes of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). As there are no factual disputes between the parties in this appeal, the legal issue of whether the Liu reference is a “printed publication” will be reviewed de novo.
The Appellate Panel affirmed the rejection holding that distribution or indexing is not required of printed publications.
The reference itself was shown … to members of the public having ordinary skill … Those members of the public were not precluded from taking notes or even photographs of the reference. And the reference itself was presented in such a way that copying of the information it contained would have been a relatively simple undertaking for those to whom it was exposed-particularly given the amount of time they had to copy the information and the lack of any restrictions on their copying of the information. For these reasons, we conclude that the Liu reference was made sufficiently publicly accessible to count as a “printed publication” under § 102(b).