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§ 41.6 Public availability of Board records. - Appendix R Patent Rules
§ 41.6 Public availability of Board records.
(a) Publication. (1) Generally. Any Board action is available for public inspection without a party's permission if rendered in a file open to the public pursuant to § 1.11 of this title or in an application that has been published in accordance with §§ 1.211 to 1.221 of this title. The Office may independently publish any Board action that is available for public inspection.
(2) Determination of special circumstances. Any Board action not publishable under paragraph (a)(1) of this section may be published or made available for public inspection if the Director believes that special circumstances warrant publication and a party does not, within two months after being notified of the intention to make the action public, object in writing on the ground that the action discloses the objecting party's trade secret or other confidential information and states with specificity that such information is not otherwise publicly available. If the action discloses such information, the party shall identify the deletions in the text of the action considered necessary to protect the information. If the affected party considers that the entire action must be withheld from the public to protect such information, the party must explain why. The party will be given time, not less than twenty days, to request reconsideration and seek court review before any contested portion of the action is made public over its objection.
(b) Record of proceeding. (1) The record of a Board proceeding is available to the public unless a patent application not otherwise available to the public is involved.
(2) Notwithstanding paragraph (b)(1) of this section, after a final Board action in or judgment in a Board proceeding, the record of the Board proceeding will be made available to the public if any involved file is or becomes open to the public under § 1.11 of this title or an involved application is or becomes published under §§ 1.211 to 1.221 of this title.
[Added, 69 FR 49959, Aug. 12, 2004, effective Sept. 13, 2004]
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