CAFC: Conference Poster a Printed Publication

In re Klopfenstein, slip op 03-1583 (Fed. Cir. August 18, 2004) held that, regardless of a lack of indexing, a conference poster was made sufficiently publicly accessible to count as a "printed publication" under Sec. 102(b). According to the court,

Appellants presented a printed slide presentation (or "the Liu reference") entitled "Enhancement of Cholesterol-Lowering Activity of Dietary Fibers By Extrusion Processing" at a meeting of the American Association of Cereal Chemists ("AACC"). The fourteen-slide presentation was printed and pasted onto poster boards. The printed slide presentation was displayed continuously for two and a half days at the AACC meeting. The reference itself was shown for an extended period of time to members of the public having ordinary skill in the art of the invention behind the '950 patent application. Those members of the public were not precluded from taking notes or even photographs of the reference. And the reference itself was presented in such a way that copying of the information it contained would have been a relatively simple undertaking for those to whom it was exposed-particularly given the amount of time they had to copy the information and the lack of any restrictions on their copying of the information. For these reasons, we conclude that the Liu reference was made sufficiently publicly accessible to count as a "printed publication" under Sec. 102(b).