The provisions of the First Inventor to File System includes a 1-year grace period.

Specifically, prior art disclosures made publicly available one year or less before the effective filing date can be overcome by the applicant showing (1) the prior art disclosure was by another who obtained the disclosed subject matter from the applicant (a deriver), or (2) the applicant or a deriver publicly disclosed the subject matter before the date of the prior art disclosure.

A prior disclosure of the invention which is publicly available more than one year before the effective filing date of an application is a statutory bar.

For prior art purposes, U.S. patents and patent application publications are available as prior art as of any foreign priority date, provided that the subject matter being relied upon is disclosed in the foreign priority application.