CAFC Rejects ‘Ministerial Requirement’ Standard for Non-Provisional Patent Application Priority Dates

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Dental Monitoring SAS v. Align Technology, Inc. vacating a final written decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which had invalidated patent claims directed to dental arch imaging as obvious. In so ruling, the Federal Circuit rejected the PTAB’s conclusion that a prior art reference was entitled to the priority date of its provisional patent application regardless of whether it provided writ