Opinion ID: 208012
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Availability for Inspection

Text: Dr. Lister analogizes this case to Northern Telecom, Inc. v. Datapoint Corp., 908 F.2d 931, 936-37 (Fed. Cir. 1990), a case in which this court held that several documents relating to a military system for distributed computer processing of logistical data were not printed publications within the meaning of § 102(b) because they were not generally available to the interested public. According to Dr. Lister, the burden of traveling to Washington, D.C., and navigating what he describes as the cumbersome procedures necessary to gain access to the manuscript precludes a finding of general availability. In support of his position, he cites a September 10, 2004 letter from the Copyright Office that states that it searched its records but did not find a single request for inspection of the manuscript. Additionally, Dr. Lister emphasizes that the Copyright Office is unable to provide copies of the manuscript to interested researchers. See 37 C.F.R. § 201.2(d)(2). Thus, in Dr. Lister's view, the difficulty of accessing the manuscript, combined with affirmative evidence that no one has ever requested to inspect it, demonstrates that the manuscript was effectively unavailable to the public. We cannot accept Dr. Lister's argument. First, there is a critical difference between the requirements for obtaining access to the documents at issue in Northern Telecom and the steps that one must take to view the Lister manuscript at the Copyright Office. In Northern Telecom, the documents were housed within the library at Mitre Corporation, and [a]ccess to the library was restricted to persons authorized by Mitre. 908 F.2d at 936. In contrast, in this case, any member of the public who submits a proper request is capable of gaining access to the manuscript without any need for special authorization. Second, we have previously recognized that a reference can be considered publicly accessible even if gaining access to it might require a significant amount of travel. See Hall, 781 F.2d at 899-900 (holding that a copy of a dissertation shelved in a library in Germany was a printed publication). Additionally, as the Board noted, an interested person could hire someone local to inspect the manuscript on their behalf. Finally, our cases have held that once accessibility is shown, it is unnecessary to show that anyone actually inspected the reference. See, e.g., SRI, 511 F.3d at 1197 ([A]ctual retrieval of a publication is not a requirement for public accessibility . . . .); Constant, 848 F.2d at 1569 (Accessibility goes to the issue of whether interested members of the relevant public could obtain the information if they wanted to. If accessibility is proved, there is no requirement to show that particular members of the public actually received the information.). Finally, we agree with the Board that an interested researcher would be able to gain and retain an understanding of Dr. Lister's invention upon inspection of the manuscript and without any need to obtain a copy.