How does the “described” requirement differ between AIA and pre-AIA patent law?
The MPEP clarifies that the “described” requirement remains essentially unchanged between pre-AIA and AIA patent law. It states: “The Office does not view the AIA as changing the extent to which a claimed invention must be described for a prior art document to anticipate the claimed invention under 35 U.S.C. 102.” This means that the standards for determining whether a prior art document sufficiently describes an invention to qualify as anticipatory prior art are consistent between the two regimes.
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Topics:
MPEP 2100 - Patentability,
MPEP 2152.02(B) - Described In A Printed Publication,
Patent Law,
Patent Procedure