Statutory bar issues often relate to timing and failing to file a patent application before a deadline. Patent rights are created by statute and therefore are regulated by statute. Title 35 of the United States Code, the federal patent statute, at section 102, says that an inventor shall be entitled to a patent unless:
- (a) the invention was known or used by others in the U.S., or patented or described in a printed publication in the U.S. or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent; or
- (b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in the U.S. or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in the U.S., more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the U.S.; or
- (c) the inventor has abandoned the invention; or
- (d) the invention was first patented or caused to be patented, or was the subject of an inventor’s certificate, by the applicant or the applicant’s legal representatives or assigns in a foreign country prior to the date of the application for patent in the U.S. on an application for patent or inventor’s certificate filed more than twelve months before the filing of the application in the U.S.; or
- (e) the invention was described in a patent granted on an application for patent filed by another in the U.S. before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or on an international application by another before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent; or
- (f) the inventor did not invent the subject matter sought to be patented; or
- (g) before the applicant’s invention thereof the invention was made in the U.S. by another who had not abandoned, suppressed, or concealed the invention.
In determining priority of invention, there shall be considered not only the respective dates of conception and reduction to practice of the invention, but also the reasonable diligence of one who was first to conceive and last to reduce to practice, from a time prior to conception by the other.