What is considered prior art for the purpose of Disclosure?

Prior art for the purposes of disclosure includes any information that is available to the public before the effective filing date of a patent application. This means that any published materials, presentations at conferences, or any other publicly accessible information that can be used to demonstrate what was known prior to that date qualifies as prior art.

The effective filing date is critical because it establishes a cutoff for what can be considered in evaluating the novelty and non-obviousness of the claimed invention. Information published after the effective filing date does not count as prior art because it cannot affect the applicant's ability to claim novelty for their invention.

In addition, while sworn declarations can be used to contest certain disclosures or to establish dates of invention in some contexts, they do not define what constitutes prior art itself. Furthermore, information shared through private communications typically does not qualify as prior art, since it is not publicly accessible until it is published or otherwise disclosed to the public.

Thus, the correct understanding is that the scope of prior art encompasses any and all information that was publicly available before the effective filing date, highlighting the importance of when information is disclosed relative to the filing date of a patent application.