Court Opinion

ID: 9496252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:21:34.947785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:27.148944
License: Public Domain

*1382GAJARSA, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the court. I agree that Minton’s lease of TEXCEN to Starks was a sale within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). In so holding, however, the majority, citing In re Kollar, 286 F.3d 1326 (Fed.Cir.2002), also suggests that invented processes warrant different treatment from invented tangible products in an on-sale bar analysis. See ante at 1378-1379. To the extent that Kollar can be read in that way, I disagree with Kollar. I write separately because nothing in § 102(b) compels differential treatment between a sale of an invention that is a tangible item and an invention that is a series of steps in a process.
My disagreement with the majority on this matter is rooted in the plain and unambiguous language of § 102(b), which states that an invention cannot be patented if the “invention was ... on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application .... ” 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) (emphasis added). It is elementary that either a tangible product or an intangible process can be such a patentable “invention.” See 35 U.S.C. § 101 (2000). Thus, for an on-sale bar to operate pursuant to § 102(b), there need only be a commercial sale or offer for sale of an “invention,” be it tangible product or intangible process, more than one year prior to the filing of the application. See Group One, Ltd. v. Hallmark Cards, Inc., 254 F.3d 1041, 1048 (Fed.Cir.2001).
Moreover, the majority’s statement that “a know-how agreement ‘under which development of the claimed process would have to occur before the process is successfully commercialized, is not a sale,’ ” ante at 1378 (quoting Kollar, 286 F.3d at 1333), implies that the process sold in Kol-lar was not ready for patenting and therefore could not be commercialized by the patentee. While I agree with the general statement that a sale of know-how that is not ready for patenting does not trigger the on-sale bar, Kollar does not support such a statement because this court in Kollar concluded “Kollar’s reduction to practice of the invention rendered it ‘ready for patenting.’ ” Kollar, 286 F.3d at 1330 (quoting Pfaff v. Wells Elecs., Inc., 525 U.S. 55, 67-68, 119 S.Ct. 304, 142 L.Ed.2d 261 (1998)). Assuming the invention is “ready for patenting,” Pfaff, 525 U.S. at 67, 119 S.Ct. 304, it is the “sale” of the invention, i.e., the commercialization by the patentee, that triggers the on-sale bar, not performance of the process by the transferee or commercialization of the product resulting from that performance.
Here, the invalidating “sale” occurred when Minton conveyed TEXCEN to Starks. This transfer of the steps in the later-claimed method marked the “first commercial marketing,” id. at 67,119 S.Ct. 304, of the invention, thus implicating the on-sale bar and its attendant policy concern that a patentee not “preserve the monopoly ... for a longer period than is allowed by the policy of the law ....,” id. at 64, 119 S.Ct. 304.
Because a commercial sale of an invention, be it product or process, triggers the on-sale bar, I respectfully concur in the judgment of the court.