Duty of Candor
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Rule 56 explains that patents are "ffected with a public interest. The public interest is best served, and the most effective patent examination occurs when, at the time an application is being examined, the Office is aware of and evaluates the teachings of all information material to patentability." Accordingly, each individual person "associated with the filing and prosecution of a patent application has a duty of candor and good faith in dealing with the Office, which includes a duty to disclose to the Office all information known to that individual to be material to patentability."
Read more about this topic: Inequitable Conduct
Famous quotes containing the words duty of, duty and/or candor:
“The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“It is not enough for us to prostrate ourselves under the tree which is Creation, and to contemplate its tremendous branches filled with stars. We have a duty to perform, to work upon the human soul, to defend the mystery against the miracle, to worship the incomprehensible while rejecting the absurd; to accept, in the inexplicable, only what is necessary; to dispel the superstitions that surround religion—to rid God of His Maggots.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“It is always well to accept your own shortcomings with candor but to regard those of your friends with polite incredulity.”
—Russell Lynes (b. 1910)