Intellectual Property
What is the one year grace period in U.S. patent practice?

Even when an inventor is the first to invent, she may be statutorily barred from obtaining a U.S. patent if she or a third party sells or offers for sale (only in the U.S.), publicly uses, patents or describes in a printed publication the claimed invention more than 1 year before the filing date of the patent application.  These statutory bars may be viewed as a one-year grace period during which an inventor may perfect her invention and prepare and file her patent application.

Therefore, an inventor has one year to file her U.S. patent application after the invention was sold, offered for sale, publicly used, patented in a foreign country, or described in a printed publication.  There must first be a triggering event.  This may be done by others or by the inventor herself.  If the inventor does not file a U.S. patent application before a year passes from the date of the triggering event, she loses the right to patent the invention. 

The one-year grace period for inventors in the United States is arguably more forgiving than patent law in many other countries.  Many foreign patent laws state that an invention is no longer patentable if it is disclosed to the public in any way before the filing date of the patent application.  Because the one-year grace period applies only to U.S. rights, an inventor interested in obtaining patent rights in other countries must be careful to abide by the relevant rules in those jurisdictions.