Federal Circuit Patent Updates - May 2017

Chen, J. The estoppel provision of pre-AIA section 317(b) did not serve as a bar to maintain inter partes reexaminations with respect to claims that were not subject to district court judgment or against parties that were not part of the judgment or with respect to a consolidated ex parte reexamination. 

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May 1, 2017 9:41 AM

Dyk, J. Reversing district court holding in Hatch-Waxman case that four patents (one of which was governed by the AIA and three of which were not) were not invalid under on-sale bar. With respect to the pre-AIA patents, an agreement for the sale of goods contingent on regulatory approval constitutes a commercial sale. With respect to the post-AIA patent, “We conclude that, after the AIA, if the existence of the sale is public, the details of the invention need not be publicly disclosed in the terms of sale.” The invention was “ready for patenting” because it was reduced to practice prior to the critical date. 

A full version of the text is available in PDF form.