Opinion ID: 1040588
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Public Accessibility Inquiry

Text: “Our cases have provided considerable guidance as to what it means to be ‘accessible to the public.’” Dey, 715 F.3d at 1355. Thus, “public use may occur when ‘a completed invention is used in public, without restriction.’” Id. (quoting Allied Colloids, Inc. v. Am. Cynamid Co., 64 F.3d 1570, 1574 (Fed. Cir. 1995)). “[A]n agreement of confidentiality, or circumstances creating a similar expectation of secrecy, may negate a ‘public use’ where there is not commercial exploitation.” Invitrogen, 424 F.3d at 1382. Similarly, a disclosure of some aspects of an invention, but not all, will likely preclude a finding of public use. See, e.g., W.L. Gore & Assocs., Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1549 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (reversing § 102(b) invalidation, in part, because “looking at the machine in 7 Because ultimately we hold that Norsk Hydro made an invalidating use of the inventions described in the asserted claims of the ’667 patent when it sent at least two liquid samples to Skrinska, we focus on only that use—the shipment and testing of the liquid vials—in our analysis. It is unnecessary for us to reach the other purportedly invalidating uses which Appellants assert. 12 PRONOVA BIOPHARMA NORGE v. TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS operation does not reveal whether it is stretching, and, if so, at what speed. Nor . . . whether the crystallinity and temperature elements of the invention set forth in the claims are involved.”).
In the seminal case Egbert v. Lippmann, 104 U.S. 333, 336 (1881), the Supreme Court articulated the principal inquiry regarding public use: Was the invention’s use public in the sense that it was made available to others with no limitation or restriction? Specifically in Egbert, an inventor made several embodiments of his invention, springs to be used with a women’s corset, and gave them to a friend who wore them under her clothes for several years. Egbert, 104 U.S. at 335. Despite the essentially concealed nature of the friend’s use, the Supreme Court invalidated the patent: If an inventor, having made his device, gives or sells it to another, to be used by the donee or ven- dee, without limitation or restriction, or injunction of secrecy, and it is so used, such use is public, even though the use and knowledge of the use may be confined to one person. Id. at 336. The inquiry is not whether the third person to whom an invention is disclosed makes an open and obvious use of it, but whether the inventor himself has made a use of his invention which is “public” because it was given to a member of the public without restriction. Given the nature of the inquiry, our case law understandably focuses on the limitations, restrictions, or secrecy obligations associated with a purported public use. See, e.g., Dey, 715 F.3d at 1355; Netscape Commc’ns Corp., 295 F.3d at 1321. We have explained that “whether an invention is accessible to the public or reasonably believed to be freely available depends, at least in part, on the degree of confidentiality surrounding its use.” Dey, 715 F.3d at 1355 (internal quotation marks omitted). The degree of PRONOVA BIOPHARMA NORGE v. TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS 13 confidentiality necessary to avoid a finding of public use naturally depends on the circumstances.” Id. To analyze the degree of confidentiality surrounding a purported public use, we have also focused on the amount of control which the discloser retains over the invention during the uses in question. For example, in Lough v. Brunswick Corp., 86 F.3d 1113, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1996), we invalidated a patent despite an inventor’s argument that the uses were experimental, because he had given the invention—seals for boat motors—to several friends who, in turn, installed and tested one on a boat, which they later sold. 86 F.3d at 1121. After the sale, neither the inventor nor the friends “knew what happened with either the prototype or the demonstration boat after the boat was sold,” so the inventor “did not maintain any supervision and control over the seals during the alleged testing.” Id. Similarly, in Eolas Technologies Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 399 F.3d 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2005), we found that a demonstration of the invention to “two Sun Microsystems employees without confidentiality agreements” was an invalidating public use under § 102(b), even though there was no evidence that those employees personally “used” the invention. 399 F.3d at 1334. And, in Beachcombers, International, Inc. v. Wildewood Creative Products, Inc., 31 F.3d 1154 (Fed. Cir. 1994), we affirmed a jury verdict finding public use of a patented device under § 102(b) based on evidence that the designer and developer demonstrated a prototype at a party for her guests to view. 31 F.3d at 1159–60. On the other hand, in Moleculon Research Corp. v. CBS, Inc., 793 F.2d 1261, 1265–67 (Fed. Cir. 1986), we upheld a patent even though the inventor had showed prototypes of the invention, a threedimensional puzzle, to several friends and his employer over the course of five years. 793 F.2d at 1263. We upheld the lower court’s findings that the inventor “at all times retained control over the puzzle’s use and the distribution of information concerning it,” and he “re- 14 PRONOVA BIOPHARMA NORGE v. TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS tained control even though he and [the employer] had not entered into any express confidentiality agreement.” Id. at 1266. Also among the circumstances of the disclosure upon which we have focused is the sophistication of those to whom disclosure was made. As we recently explained in Dey, while a public use might not arise where disclosure is limited to a small number of uninformed observers, “even limited disclosure to those who are skilled enough to know, understand, and ‘easily demonstrate the invention to others,’ may mean that there was no reasonable expectation of secrecy and that the invention was therefore in public use.” Dey, 715 F.3d at 1356 (citing Netscape Commc'ns Corp., 295 F.3d at 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2002)).
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.