Internet Prior Art Must Not Be Temporal

In "When is an Electronic Document a Printed Publication for Prior Art Purposes?", Wynn W. Coggins Group Director of Technology Center 3600 at The United States Patent and Trademark Office notes that

Prior art disclosures on the Internet or in an on-line database are considered to be publicly available as of the date the item was publicly posted. This is provided that the item is dated and not temporal, and can be indexed for subsequent retrieval. An example of a temporal item is a web broadcast that cannot be saved, retrieved or printed, e.g., a live simulcast feed that is not archived, and a "streaming" audio or video that "flashes" across the screen.

Websites can be used as references if posting dates can be found, and those posting dates predate the invention.

Examiners utilize commercial databases and the Wayback Machine to help establish website posting dates in order to qualify the website as prior art. The Wayback Machine finds archived web pages back to 1996 (each archived page is dated), and it covers many, but not all, web pages. Find archived pages for: http://attrasoft.com