Further to the Sept. 22nd email, the fundamental problem with the American grace period is the different approach taken versus the European Patent Convention and the Japan Patent Law:
In the three systems, only in the American grace period are events excluded from novelty determinations, but not for determining whether an invention is obvious, as explained in the pdf version of this note (which also includes as attachments the prior discussion).
stateoftheartexclusionsfromnonobviousnesssept23
Regards,
Hal