UK Public Law

The Duty of Candour is the concept a public authority should not seek to win the litigation at all costs but
to assist the court in reaching the correct result and thereby to improve standards in public administration.

This should be disambiguated from Will Powell's campaign for NHS Managers to have a formal 'Duty of Candour' when dealing with complaints about negligent or poor standards of care in NHS Hospitals.

US patent applications

Duty of Candour also referred to as Rule 56, is basically a "full disclosure" rule for patent application

Patent application

A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for the invention described and claimed by that application. An application consists of a description of the invention , together with official forms and correspondence relating to the application...

s. This rule, made by the US Patent and Trademark Office, specifically requires that everyone involved with a patent application must disclose all publications that they know of which may adversely affect the patentability

Patentability

Within the context of a national or multilateral body of law, an invention is patentable if it meets the relevant legal conditions to be granted a patent...

 of their invention

Invention

An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...

.

External links

• Full text of the rule: 37 CFR 1.56