Federal Circuit Examines Written Description Requirements for U.S. Patent Application Publications Used as Prior Art Under Pre-AIA

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May 2025

Federal Circuit Examines Written Description Requirements for U.S. Patent Application Publications Used as Prior Art Under Pre-AIA

Intellectual Property Strategist

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On March 24, 2025, a Federal Circuit panel consisting of Judges Moore, Stoll, and Cunningham issued a precedential opinion, authored by Judge Stoll, in In re Riggs, No. 2022-1945 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 24, 2025). Appellants in Riggs are the named inventors listed on U.S. Patent Application No. 11/005,678 (the “678 Application”). Riggs, slip op. at 2. They appealed, among other rulings, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s determination that a published patent application qualified as prior art under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(e)(1). Id.1 The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded, finding that the Board did an incomplete analysis in determining whether the published application did, in fact, qualify as prior art under § 102(e).

To continue reading Jeffrey Ginsberg and J. Jay Cho's article in Intellectual Property Strategist, click here.

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