New Article “Avoiding Responsibility: The Case for Amending the Duty to Disclose Prior Art in Patent Law”

Federal regulation requires patent applicants in the United States to disclose to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) a wide range of references that might be material to their invention’s patentability. Applicant disclosure of prior art currently plays a large role in the prosecution and litigation of patents. The effects are quite deleterious, resulting in the filing of unnecessary references that go unreviewed in the USPTO and providing plausible grounds for the assertion of inequitable conduct defenses in patent infringement actions. This Comment looks at the history of the laws that evolved into the codified duty to disclose prior art and finds that the historical rationales no longer justify such an imposition. It also examines several foreign jurisdictions that differ from the United States in their mandates to disclose prior art, ultimately recommending the adoption of the standard used by the European Patent Office as a way to resolve both the administrative and legal challenges posed by the current standard.