In Monthly Law360 Column, Sean Murray and Jeremiah Helm Analyze Recent Fed. Circuit Decisions Regarding Public Disclosure of Inventions

In their latest Law360 column on recent noteworthy Federal Circuit decisions, partners Sean Murray and Jeremiah Helm offer insight into the impact of the court’s rulings in Sanho v. Kaijet and Celanese International v. International Trade Commission.

Murray and Helm maintain that both decisions “provided guidance to inventors who wonder what they are permitted to do between conceiving their invention and filing their patent application.” The authors give context for the central issue at play in each decision: the actions and disclosures that can invalidate or preserve a patent if they occur before the inventor files his or her patent application.

Murray and Helm further explain that Sanho illustrates that should consider publicly disclosing their invention as soon as possible, and the Celanese decision underscores that “inventors must file their patent application within a year of any public disclosure, use, sale or commercialization of their invention.”

Murray and Helm conclude that companies should consider publicly disclosing new technology as soon as they begin commercializing it.  “Unless [a] company can maintain any innovations as trade secrets, and is considering doing so, it can make a public disclosure to protect any patentable innovations it may have developed.”

Read the full article here.