Opinion ID: 732460
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The On-Sale Bar

Text: 26 Micro argues that there was no sale of, or definite offer to sell, the invention prior to the critical date. It asserts that the invention could not have been on sale at the time of the alleged offer to Isaac because the invention did not exist at that time. According to Micro, as of the December date, Pratt had not yet designed anything patentable and the public therefore could not be in possession of his invention. 27 Lextron responds that the offer to Isaac in December 1984 was properly found to constitute an on-sale bar. According to Lextron, Pratt did have an invention to sell to Isaac at that time, insisting that Pratt had already built three prototypes and had reduced the invention to practice approximately two weeks after the offer was made. Furthermore, Lextron argues that, according to our decision in UMC Elecs. Co. v. United States, 816 F.2d 647, 2 USPQ2d 1465 (Fed.Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1025, 108 S.Ct. 748, 98 L.Ed.2d 761 (1988), a prior reduction to practice is not a prerequisite to an on-sale bar and that even before the reduction to practice had occurred, the offer to Isaac constituted a bar. 28 Application of the on-sale bar under section 102 is a question of law based upon underlying issues of fact. See KeyStone Retaining Wall Sys., Inc. v. Westrock, Inc., 997 F.2d 1444, 1451, 27 USPQ2d 1297, 1303 (Fed.Cir.1993); UMC, 816 F.2d at 657, 2 USPQ2d at 1472. A determination that an invention was on sale within the meaning of section 102(b) requires that the claimed invention asserted to be on sale was operable, the complete invention claimed was embodied in or obvious in view of the device offered for sale, and the sale or offer was primarily for profit rather than for experimental purposes. KeyStone, 997 F.2d at 1451, 27 USPQ2d at 1303. In UMC, we stated that a reduction to practice of the claimed invention is not a prerequisite for triggering the on-sale bar. UMC, 816 F.2d at 656, 2 USPQ2d at 1471. Rather, [a]ll of the circumstances surrounding the sale or offer to sell, including the stage of development of the invention and the nature of the invention, must be considered and weighed against the policies underlying section 102(b). Id., 816 F.2d 647, 2 USPQ2d at 1471-72. 29 We agree with Micro that the invention of the patent was not offered for sale before the critical date within the meaning of section 102(b). The evidence compels a conclusion that Pratt's invention was clearly not completed when he made the December offer. At the time of the alleged offer, Pratt had developed a prototype for the weighing system; however, he had only made a sketch of the mixing system and had not yet designed the elements for isolating the weighing system. The invention was thus not close to completion and Pratt was not confident at that time that the invention would work for its intended purpose. Pratt testified that, as of December 28, 1984, [t]here had been no construction of the mixing tank or the slurry system portion of the machine at that time. He stated that what he had at that time was a proposed configuration. At the time of the alleged offer to Isaac, Pratt had not reduced the invention to practice, nor had he substantially completed the invention. Because Pratt was not close to completion of the invention at the time of the alleged offer and had not demonstrated a high likelihood that the invention would work for its intended purpose upon completion, his December 1984 offer could not trigger the on-sale bar. 30 In the UMC case, we held a patent invalid on the basis of an on-sale bar, even though the invention had not been reduced to practice. Although Lextron argues here that UMC requires that we affirm the invalidity of Micro's patent, we do not agree. The invention in UMC was an aviation counting accelerometer (ACA), which was used in aircraft for sensing and determining how many times the aircraft had been subjected to predetermined levels of acceleration. ACAs had previously used electro-mechanical sensors, which generated a mechanical signal to indicate levels of acceleration, and at times produced an erroneous signal as a result of mechanical vibrations or stresses. The new ACA used an analog transducer, which produced an electrical signal that could be filtered to remove the adverse effects of mechanical vibrations. UMC made a definite offer to sell the new ACA before the critical date of the patent-in-suit. At the time of the offer, the new ACA was substantially complete. The court stated that the prior art devices embodied each element of the claimed invention, save one, and that portion was available and had been sufficiently tested to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the inventor that the invention as ultimately claimed would work for its intended purpose. UMC, 816 F.2d at 657, 2 USPQ2d at 1472. The invention was substantially completed and there was reason for a high degree of confidence that it would work for its intended purpose. See Seal-Flex, Inc. v. Athletic Track and Court Constr., 98 F.3d 1318, 1322, 40 USPQ2d 1450, 1452 (Fed.Cir.1996). 31 UMC thus stands for the proposition that, even though the technical requirements of a reduction to practice have not been met, a sale or a definite offer to sell a substantially completed invention, with reason to expect that it would work for its intended purpose upon completion, suffices to generate a statutory bar. On the other hand, the court stated that [i]f the inventor had merely a conception or was working towards development of that conception, it can be said there is not yet any 'invention' which could be placed on sale. UMC, 816 F.2d at 657, 2 USPQ2d at 1472. The facts here fit the UMC opinion's hypothetical statement of facts which would fail to constitute a bar much more closely than they fit the actual facts in that case which the court found constituted a bar. We conclude that the undisputed facts concerning Pratt's alleged offer to sell do not constitute an on-sale bar within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) and that the district court erred in holding that they did.