Whether, in a patent-infringement suit, a court may consider after arising technology to hold that the patent is invalid under § 112(a) of the Patent Act?

In a patent case, “after -arising technology” is technology that was not invented until after the patent’s filing. Neither this Court nor the Federal Circuit en banc has addressed the disclosure rules for after -arising technology. One line of Federal Circui t case law holds that when a patentee secures a claim construction that ensnares, as infringing, an accused device that features after -arising technology, the patentee risks invalidating its own patent under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a), which requires a patentee to describe and teach the claimed invention. A contradictory line of Federal Circuit decisions, including the decision below, carves out an exception for after -arising technology. This line holds that “later -existing state of the art … may not be properly considered” in the validity analysis. After -arising technology, that is, may not “reach back and invalidate” a patent. Yet that proposition conflicts with The Incandescent Lamp Patent , 159 U.S. 465 (1895). Edison’s after -arising bamboo -filament technology ex posed the invalidity of Sawyer and Man’s patent for an electric lightbulb . The question presented is: Whether, in a patent -infringement suit, a court may consider after arising technology to hold that the patent is invalid under § 112(a) of the Patent Act?