While a printed publication must be sufficiently disseminated to qualify as prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102, it “need not be easily searchable after publication if it was sufficiently disseminated at the time of its publication.” Thus, as here, even a non-indexed and non-searchable Internet forum posting can qualify as a prior art “printed publication” as defined by 35 U.S.C. § 102.
Background / Facts: The patent being asserted here is directed to methods and systems for controlling a server that supplies files to computers rendering web pages. The primary reference cited against the patent as a defense on the grounds of anticipation is an online newsgroup post in an Internet forum, which, at the time, was not indexed and not searchable. Although the newsgroup posts did have titles, they could only be sorted by date.
Issue(s): Whether a non-indexed and non-searchable Internet forum posting can qualify as a prior art “printed publication” as defined by 35 U.S.C. § 102.
Holding(s): Yes. “[A] printed publication need not be easily searchable after publication if it was sufficiently disseminated at the time of its publication.” Analogizing to “a poster board presentation displayed for several days at an industry association meeting” or “a paper delivered orally at a conference, where [several] copies of the paper were distributed,” as in prior cases, the court similarly found the Internet forum posting here to be “sufficiently disseminated to be ‘publically accessible,’ and thus a printed publication.” In this case, “dialogue with the intended audience was the entire purpose of the newsgroup postings” and the particular post at issue “elicited at least six responses over the week following its publication,” where “[m]any more people may have viewed the posts without posting anything themselves.”