Appeal No. 2006-0132
Application No. 09/946,627
art is the key factor in determining whether a particular paper
would be considered a ‘printed publication’ under the statute
. . . The publication requirement may also be satisfied by
distributing or making the paper available at a conference where
persons interested or skilled in the subject matter were told of
the paper’s existence and informed of its contents.”); Freeman v.
Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., 675 F.Supp. 877, 882,
5 USPQ2d 1465, 1467 (D. Del. 1987)(“The document need not be
formally ‘printed’ to be printed publication . . . [T]he
determination of whether a document is a printed publication
requires the court to focus on the unitary concept of ‘public
accessibility.’ The inquiry for the Court is whether there has
been public dissemination of the document and whether the
information contained in it is accessible to person skilled in or
interested in the art.”). Indeed, there is no evidence in this
record that access to the Wanthal document was ever denied to the
interested public.
The regulations also do not preclude a significant segment
of the interested public from exploiting the subject matter
therein for commercial purposes. None of the regulations relied
upon by the appellants prevents attendees of the Closed Session
in question or individuals who bought copies of the Wanthal
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