Opinion ID: 1040588
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scope of Disclosure

Text: Even where a disclosure is unrestricted, it will not be an invalidating public use, unless the patent challenger establishes that all claimed aspects of the invention were made public. See, e.g., Dey, 715 F.3d at 1357. Two of our recent cases illustrate this point. In Dey, for example, we held that the alleged infringer was not entitled to summary judgment of invalidity due to prior public use. Id. The purported public use was the defendant’s own clinical trial of the allegedly infringing product. Id. Because only the clinical trial administrator, not the subjects taking the medication, was made aware of the invention’s claimed formulation and stability characteristics, and the administrator had signed a pledge of confidentiality, we held that “a finder of fact could conclude that the study was conducted with a reasonable expectation of confidentiality as to the nature of the formulations being tested, [such that] summary judgment on the public use issue was inappropriate.” Id. (emphasis added). A fact finder could so conclude even though the subjects did not likewise sign a confidentiality pledge because “they were PRONOVA BIOPHARMA NORGE v. TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS 15 given incomplete descriptions of the treatment formulation.” Id. Likewise, in Motionless Keyboard Co. v. Microsoft Corp., 486 F.3d 1376, 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2007), we reversed a lower court judgment invalidating a patent where certain disclosures did not reveal all aspects of the claimed invention, and another disclosure, which did so, was subject to a non-disclosure agreement. 486 F.3d 1376. Specifically, the invention was an ergonomic keyboard and the claims required that the device transmit information. See U.S. Patent No. 5,178,477 col. 7 ll. 46–48 (“An ergonomic keyboard input device for the transmission of information by a human operator to an electronic system coupled with said device . . . ”); U.S. Patent No. 5,332,322 col. 8 ll. 16– 31 (“A handheld device for entering information into an electronic system via a keyboard . . . whereby information is entered into an electronic system.”). The inventor had shown a prototype of the invention to potential investors, but the prototype was not plugged into a computer during these displays. Id. at 1379. He also made the invention available to a third-party to perform testing, which did involve the transmission of information, but that third party had signed a confidentiality agreement. Id. We found no public use from either disclosure: All disclosures, except for the one-time typing test, only provided a visual view of the new key- board design without any disclosure of the [prototype’s] ability to translate finger movements into actuation of keys to transmit data. In essence, these disclosures visually displayed the keyboard design without putting it into use. In short, the [prototype] was not in public use as the term is used in section 102(b) because the device, alt- hough visually disclosed and only tested one time with a NDA signed by the typing tester, was never connected to be used in the normal course of busi- ness to enter data into a system. 16 PRONOVA BIOPHARMA NORGE v. TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS Id. Our precedent thus establishes firmly that all aspects of the claimed invention must be disclosed for the § 102(b) public use bar to apply. See also Janssen Pharmaceutica, N.V. v. Eon Labs Mfg., Inc., 134 F. App’x 425, 431 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“Janssen correctly argues, however, that because the composition of F12 (including the beads and the size of the cores contained in the capsule) was never released to the doctors or the subjects of the trials, this fact weighs in favor of a finding that the use was not public.”); W.L. Gore & Assocs., Inc., 721 F.2d at 1549 (reversing lower court judgment invalidating method claims under § 102(b) because there was “no evidence that a viewer of [a] machine could thereby learn anything of which process, among all possible processes, the machine is being used to practice”). With these principles in mind, we turn to the allegedly invalidating use at issue here. Because we find that Norsk Hydro sent samples of the invention claimed in the ’667 patent to Skrinska at the St. Vincent Charity Hospital without restriction and Skrinska thereafter tested the samples, we hold that Norsk Hydro put its invention to an invalidating public use.