Opinion ID: 291699
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The 'On Sale' Defense.

Text: 31 Escambia urges the simple factual defense that Stamicarbon's process-- or rather a very similar process (Inventa-Vulcan)-- was on sale in the United States more than one year before the date of the patent in suit. 35 U.S.C.A. 102(b) (1954). The relevant Findings of Fact are numbers 16 and 23 and are as follows: 32 '16. The evidence is not persuasive that the inventive subject matter defined by the claims of the van Waes patent in suit was publicly known or used or on sale by others in this country prior to April 15, 1953. '23. The evidence is not persuasive the Charles Cramer, the Inventa Company, Vulcan-Cincinnati Company (or their predecessors or related companies), or any of them, knew of or were possessed of the inventive subject matter of the claims of the van Waes patent in suit prior to April 15, 1953; it is persuasive that if they, or any one, did have knowledge of such subject matter, it was at all times prior to at least April 15, 1953, maintained as a closely guarded trade secret and as confidential proprietary information undisclosed in any fashion.' 33 These findings while not as specific as they might be are certainly sufficient: they find the ultimate facts-- that the process was not known, was not on sale, and was not in public use. The record evidence to support every finding is apparent. Inventa-Vulcan did not actually make a sale of a plant incorporating its process until 1954, and its process was apparently in the experimental stage in 1952 and 1953. There is correspondence in the record indicating that the Inventa-Vulcan process was not functioning in the desired manner in March 1953. Such evidence adequately supports the court's finding. It has long been recognized that: 34 'If the thing were embryotic or inchoate; if it rested in speculation or experiment; if the process pursued for its development had failed to reach the point of consummation, it cannot avail to defeat a patent founded upon a discovery or invention which was completed; while in the other case there was only progress, however near that progress may have approximated to the end view. The law requires, not conjecture, but certainty.' 35 Coffin v. Ogden, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 120, 21 L.Ed. 821 (1874); see also 1 Deller's Walker on Patents, 68 (2d ed. 1964) and cases cited therein. Since there is abundant evidence that the invention relied upon by Escambia as having been on sale did not work, it necessarily follows that the court did not err in holding that no van Waes type process was on sale. Findings 16 and 23 were not clearly erroneous. 36