Grace period and on sale bar related to “secret” sales

In a Supreme Court decision which was unanimous and authored by Justice Thomas, the Court reiterated the significance of offering a product for sale and how it affects the patent eligibility of the product. In Helsinn Healthcare v. Teva Pharma USA (Supreme Court 2019) the Court was asked to look at the enacted AIA and whether “secret” sales continue to qualify as prior art under the revised Section 102.  The court examined the provision that “an inventor’s sale of an invention to ...

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Right to Use and Resell Patented Products

The U.S. Supreme Court in a recent ruling has opined on the rights of a purchaser to use and resell patented products.

The patent system give the patent owner the right to exclude others from making, using, and selling the patented invention, for the life of the patent. The right to exclude, however, is subject to the rule of patent exhaustion – upon the sale of a patented product, the patent owner’s patent rights are exhausted and the buyer is free ...

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Indefiniteness as interpreted by the Supreme Court and PTAB

Supreme Court Changes Standard For Drafting Patents

The U.S. Supreme Court has effectively raised the bar requiring sufficient definiteness be present in a patent application “to afford clear notice of what is claimed, thereby apprising the public of what is still open to them.” In a unanimous decision, on June 2, 2014, the Court reversed the Federal Circuit’s standard for “definiteness” and remanded Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc. to the lower court. The Court held that “a patent is invalid ...

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