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:
“We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was when he entered it.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“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)