What is the requirement for the same inventor or at least one common joint inventor in foreign priority claims?

For a valid foreign priority claim, the U.S. application must have at least one common inventor with the foreign application. This requirement ensures that the right of priority is only available to the actual inventors or their legal representatives.

As stated in MPEP 213.02: “Consistent with longstanding Office policy, this is interpreted to mean that the U.S. and foreign applications must name the same inventor or have at least one joint inventor in common.”

This means that:
1. A sole inventor in the U.S. can claim priority to a foreign application where they are the sole inventor or one of joint inventors.
2. Joint inventors in the U.S. can claim priority to a foreign application filed by any one or more of them.
3. A U.S. application cannot claim priority to a foreign application with completely different inventors.

It’s important to note that while the inventorship must overlap, it doesn’t have to be identical between the U.S. and foreign applications.