Who can file an affidavit or declaration under 37 CFR 1.130?
According to MPEP 2155.05, “the applicant or patent owner may submit an affidavit or declaration” under 37 CFR 1.130. This means that the person or entity who filed the patent application or owns the patent has the authority to file such documents.
However, there’s an important distinction when the applicant is not the inventor: “When an assignee, obligated assignee, or person showing sufficient proprietary interest is the applicant under 35 U.S.C. 118 rather than the inventor, the inventor may sign an affidavit or declaration under 37 CFR 1.130 to except subject matter in a disclosure of the invention as prior art, but the declaration must be filed by a party having authority to take action in the application.“
This means that while inventors can sign these declarations, they may not have the authority to file them if they are not the applicant.
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