Do public use disclosures qualify for removal as prior art under the 102(b) grace period?

Public use disclosures do not qualify for removal as prior art under the 102(b) grace period. According to U.S. patent law, specifically the America Invents Act, the grace period allows for certain types of disclosures made by the inventor that can effectively prevent those disclosures from being considered as prior art against their own patent application. However, these protections mainly cover disclosures made by the inventor or those who derived the information from the inventor, as well as certain public disclosures made within a year of filing a patent application.

In general, any public use of the invention that occurs before the inventor's effective filing date does count as prior art against the application. Therefore, if an invention was publicly used or disclosed before the one-year grace period, it can be treated as prior art, making it essential to file a patent application before such disclosures occur. The essence of the grace period is to help inventors recover from their own premature disclosures, but it does not retroactively protect them from prior uses by others.