By Dennis Crouch
Suffolk Tech v. AOL and Google (Fed. Cir. 2014)
This is a prior art case. Suffolk’s patent application was filed back in 1996, but it turns out that the invention was described in a 1995 UseNet newsgroup post posted by a college student. The question on appeal is whether that posting counts as prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a) (pre-AIA).
Under the statute, a patent is invalid if “(a) the invention was … described in a printed publication … before the invention thereof by the applicant for a patent.” Courts have repeatedly found that online content fits within the definition of printed publication. Rather, the touchstone question is whether the material was sufficiently publicly accessible. Public accessibility looks to the ability of persons who would be interested or skilled in the subject matter to locate the reference using only reasonable diligence. If a reference is sufficiently disseminated at time of original publication then the ability to later locate the reference is irrelevant.
Today, UseNet materials are indexed by various search engines and would clearly be considered prior art. In 1995 the indexing was not so strong, but the appellate panel here affirmed that the postings clearly fall within the scope of printed publications. For that legal conclusion, the court relied upon a handful of facts:
- The record indicated that those of ordinary skill in the art were using the UseNet newsgroups in 1995, including Suffolk’s own technical expert.
- Although not fully indexed, the UseNet group was structured in a hierarchical manner that would have allowed someone interested in the topic to identify the particular group and read the posts.
- The post in question resulted in at least six responses in the week following the publication – indicating that the post was likely sufficiently distributed at publication.
Invalidity affirmed.
The case was discussed in an earlier Patently-O Posting titled Structuring a Privateering Contract (2012).
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Note – although this case was decided under pre-AIA rules, its holding should apply equally to the restructured Section 102 that also identifies “printed publications” as a form of prior art.