What replaced public use proceedings in the patent examination process?

This page is an FAQ based on guidance from the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. It is provided as guidance, with links to the ground truth sources. This is information only: it is not legal advice.

While the MPEP section 720 doesn’t directly address what replaced public use proceedings, it’s important to understand the context of their removal. Public use proceedings were discontinued as part of the America Invents Act (AIA) reforms to the U.S. patent system.

The AIA introduced new post-grant proceedings that serve similar purposes to the former public use proceedings. These include:

• Inter Partes Review (IPR)
• Post-Grant Review (PGR)
• Covered Business Method Review (CBM)

These new proceedings allow third parties to challenge the validity of patents based on various grounds, including prior public use or sale. While they differ in some respects from the old public use proceedings, they provide mechanisms for addressing similar concerns about patent validity.