If an inventor sells an invention one day after a provisional application is filed but misses the nonprovisional filing date by 1.5 months, can they still obtain a patent?

A key aspect of patent law, specifically under pre-AIA (American Inventors Act) rules, is the treatment of public disclosures and sales concerning an invention. When an inventor publicly sells an invention, it can trigger a statutory bar to patentability if this sale occurs more than one year prior to the filing of a nonprovisional patent application.

In this scenario, since the inventor sold the invention the day after filing a provisional application but failed to timely file the nonprovisional application within a one-year grace period from that sale, the public sale creates a statutory bar. This means that the inventor can no longer obtain a patent for that invention because they did not file the nonprovisional application within the required time frame following the public sale.

The corresponding provisions of the law ensure that inventors are incentivized to file for patent protection before making their inventions publicly available. Missing the nonprovisional filing date by a significant margin—such as 1.5 months after the grace period allowed from the date of sale—effectively eliminates the possibility of securing patent protection under pre-AIA rules. Thus, the correct conclusion is that the public sale creates a bar, preventing the inventor from obtaining a patent.