Is a sale conducted in secret considered prior art under AIA regulations?

Under the America Invents Act (AIA), prior art is defined primarily in terms of public accessibility. A sale conducted in secret does not contribute to prior art because it lacks public disclosure. For an invention to be considered prior art, it needs to be available to the public, which means that any sale or offer for sale must be made public for it to potentially negate novelty or be used in an obviousness analysis.

Since a secret sale is not accessible to anyone outside of those directly involved in the transaction, it remains undisclosed, and thus, would not impact the ability of a subsequent inventor to patent their invention. The notion here is that prior art is aimed at ensuring that the body of knowledge about inventions is transparent and available, thus promoting innovation and avoiding the patenting of ideas that are already known.

While there are exceptions in the realm of public disclosures, such as a public use or publication, secret sales do not meet the threshold of public knowledge and therefore cannot serve as prior art under the AIA regulations.