united-states patents
To what extent, and by what legal authority, do patent holders have a duty to share their patents
<p>This is a spin-off from <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/78870/do-patent-holders-have-an-obligation-to-make-their-patents-available-to-what-ex">Do patent holders have an obligation to make their patents available? To what extent?</a> and particularly from <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/a/78903/17500">this answer by Robbie Goodwin</a>.</p>
<p>In that answer Robbie Goodwin asserts that:</p>
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<p>patents exist to help their holders exploit whatever it is, without sharing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In an exchange of comments following this answer, the same user asserted:</p>
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<p>That patent holders are protected from the worst excesses of sharing their knowledge does not give them any duty to share.</p>
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<p>and later asked:</p>
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<p>If you [think] patent holders have a duty to share anything, where is that written? What d'you think &quot;others can make use of the ideas without infringing the patent&quot; means?</p>
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<p>Keeping all this in mind:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>To what extent do patent holders or applicants have a <strong>legal</strong> duty to share their knowledge and discoveries with others, or with the public at large?</p>
</li>
<li><p>What laws or legal regulations impose such a duty?</p>
</li>
<li><p>How can others benefit by such disclosures by the patent holder, during the term of the patent, without infringing the patent?</p>
</li>
<li><p>How can others benefit by such disclosures by the patent holder after the patent expires?</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>I am hoping for answers that cite law, case law, or other reliable sources.</p>
<p>I am particularly interested in US patent law, but am also interested in the law for any and all other jurisdictions, and answers based on the law of any jurisdiction are welcome.</p>

<p>The constitutional basis for all US patents is Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the US Constitution, which grants Congress the power:</p>
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<p>To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.</p>
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<p>See <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intellectual_property_clause" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;Intellectual Property Clause&quot;</a> from Cornell's WEX Legal Information Institute.</p>
<p>US Patent law requires an applicant to include with a patent application &quot;disclosures&quot;. As the page <a href="https://www.upcounsel.com/patent-disclosure" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;Patent Disclosure: Everything You Need to Know&quot;</a> from <em>UpCounsel</em> states:</p>
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<p>[A] patent disclosure is a public claim of data about an invention. In general, it is any part of the patenting process in which data regarding an invention is disclosed. <strong>A good disclosure tells someone else how to create the product.</strong> [<em>Emphasis added</em>]</p>
<p>The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the right to offer exclusive rights to people for their inventions for set periods of time. This is <strong>only if and when the inventor agrees to adequately disclose the invention in writing.</strong>  [<em>Emphasis added</em>]</p>
<p>A formal patent disclosure ... stipulates a set of claims regarding the invention, as well as other data that reveals the unique nature of the product. It should be expressed in writing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) as part of the patent application.</p>
<p><strong>What Is Included in a Patent Disclosure?</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>The Specification</strong>. A primary disclosure or &quot;specification&quot; is a main document in a patent application. It describes the ways in which the invention is innovative compared to similar inventions and explains the scope of monopoly the applicant believes he or she has to the invention. The specification describes the item and the way to make and to use it, in clear and exact terms. Someone in the field must be able to reasonably create it with these instructions. Further, the specification notes the patent application filing date on which inventor can the rely. It also offers evidence that the invention belongs to the person in question.</p>
</li>
<li><p><strong>The Enablement</strong>. This explains how to create the object and how someone in the field can do so. The instructions cannot be vague or unclear, but must be exact and detailed. When the patent expires, the enablement should still be usable. This section should include any figures or drawings, with explanations. Again, you will want to show how your invention is special. So, you might want to include many details and different variations of the invention. Later, many of these variations may be deleted from the document as unnecessary. This section may be numerous pages long.</p>
</li>
<li><p><strong>Best Mode Requirement</strong>. The path revealed must be the best way of creating the item within the author's awareness at the time of filing. Therefore, it may include specific or unique techniques. <em>There should be no concealment</em>. A poor-quality disclosure can risk the appearance of concealment. [<em>Italics added</em>]</p>
</li>
<li><p><strong>Claims</strong>. This area tells the reader the exclusive rights the patent offers to the inventor....</p>
</li>
</ul>
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<p>The official page <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2001.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;Duty of Disclosure, Candor, and Good Faith&quot;</a> from the USPTO cites 37 CFR 1.56   on the duty to disclose information material to patentability. This regulation provides, in the relevant part:</p>
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<p><strong>A patent by its very nature is affected with a public interest.</strong> 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. Each individual 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 as defined in this section. The duty to disclose information exists with respect to each pending claim ...</p>
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<p>These disclosures include the state of prior art, as kown to the applicant and the applicant's associates.</p>
<p>The page <a href="https://www.iptechblog.com/2021/06/best-mode-noncompliance-with-the-duty-of-disclosure-is-not-an-option/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;BEST MODE: Noncompliance with the Duty of Disclosure is Not an Option&quot;</a> states:</p>
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<p>When you apply for a patent in the United States, you have a legal duty to disclose prior art that could be used to reject your application — in essence, information that may be used against you by the examiner of your application. While persons accused of a crime have a right to remain silent, so as to avoid self-incrimination, inventors applying for a patent have no such right. To the contrary, an inventor’s failure to comply with the duty of disclosure risks any resulting patent being unenforceable.</p>
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<p>The page <a href="http://www.toikkalawgroup.com/blog/the-patent-bargain-and-the-curse-of-retroactivity" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;THE PATENT BARGAIN AND THE CURSE OF RETROACTIVITY&quot;</a> states:</p>
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<p>One of the requirements for the USPTO to issue a patent is that the applicant’s claimed invention be fully disclosed in the application and published in the patent. This is sometimes referred to as the “patent bargain.” This is at the opposite end of the spectrum from trade secrets law, under which a company can sue for © misappropriation of a trade secret but only if it takes reasonable measures to maintain confidentiality of the trade secret. ...</p>
<p>Under patent law an inventor must fully disclose his or her invention before enforceable patent rights come into being.  This disclosure requirement is sometimes termed the “patent bargain,” under which <strong>an inventor gains the right to exclude others from practicing a patented invention in exchange for disclosing the invention so that it may be known by the public</strong> and indeed practiced after the patent term has expired. ... [<em>Emphasis added</em>]</p>
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<p>In general a patent application is not just a description of a specific industrial process. It includes the research by which that process was discovered or developed. That research can benefit others in the same field, and so &quot;promote the progress of science and the useful arts&quot; in helping others to do further research and make further discoveries, which can often be done without infringing the patent itself.</p>
<p>Of course, once patent protection expires, anyone may use the patent, and the final patent documents are supposed to include sufficient information that &quot;one skilled in the art&quot; will be able to build the invention or use the process that had been patented. This is in contrast to the situation which would exist had the inventor retained the discovery as a trade secret. In that case no one would have been able to use the patented discovery until some other person independently discovered and disclosed it.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>To what extent do patent holders or applicants have a legal duty to
share their knowledge and discoveries with others, or with the public
at large?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before the patent expires, the information is disclosed but no one can use it to carry out anything claimed in it, and there is no duty to share the right to use anything claimed in it.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How can others benefit by such disclosures by the patent holder,
during the term of the patent, without infringing the patent?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Only with the express permission of the patent holder, typically in a license for which the person using it pays a fee.</p>
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<p>How can others benefit by such disclosures by the patent holder after
the patent expires?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The patent enters the public domain and anyone can use it.</p>

<p>Any information in a patent that is not covered by an issued claim is deemed dedicated to the public at the time of grant. <a href="https://www.elementiplaw.com/disclosure-dedication-doctrine-can-bar-infringement-under-the-doctrine-of-equivalents-even-when-the-equivalency-is-not-described-in-the-context-of-the-claimed-invention/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">See</a> Typically the specification includes much more information than the claimed subject matter.</p>
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<p>The disclosure-dedication doctrine bars infringement under the doctrine of equivalents where the equivalent element (found in the accused product or process) was disclosed but not claimed in the asserted patent. See Johnson &amp; Johnston Assocs., Inc. v. R.E. Service Co., Inc., 285 F.3d 1046, (Fed. Cir. 2002) (en banc). As explained by the Federal Circuit in Johnson, the policy behind the disclosure-dedication doctrine is to prevent patent owners from limiting the claimed invention during prosecution and then subsequently relying on the doctrine of equivalents to recapture the non-claimed subject matter during enforcement. Id. at 1054 (stating that “a patentee cannot narrowly claim an invention to avoid prosecution scrutiny by the PTO, and then, after patent issuance, use the doctrine of equivalents to establish infringement because the specification discloses equivalents”).</p>
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<p>For more information google <em>disclosure-dedication doctrine</em>.</p>
