There is some confusion about what constitutes an “on-sale bar” in patent law. The on-sale bar, set forth in 35 U.S.C §102, prohibits a patent if the invention sought to be patented was offered for sale or sold more than one year before the patent application was filed. In other words, there is a one-year
Federal Circuit Weighs in on Reasonable Royalties as Patent Infringement Damages
In Exmark Manufacturing Company v. Briggs & Stratton Power Products, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 783 (Fed. Cir. 2018), the Federal Court of Appeals addressed patent infringement damages based on a reasonable royalty. Exmark Manufacturing Company owned a patent for a lawn mower with an improved flow control baffle (the part that controls the flow of
Contingent Patent Ownership is Not Sufficient for Federal Court Jurisdiction
There is no federal court jurisdiction for disputes involving patents where the claimant does not actually own the patents. The possibility that one might own a patent, if a contingent future event occurs, is not enough. This seems like an obvious rule, but it ended up before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. 
The case
Can Patent Owners Buy Sovereign Immunity?
The latest issue in the patent world is one no one would have expected – sovereign immunity.
How did this issue arise? Allergan, the company that makes the dry-eye drug Restasis, has employed an aggressive strategy in attempting to protect its $1.5 billion market by selling its Restasis patents to a Native American Tribe. In
Federal Circuit: PTO Can’t Shift Burden of Proof of Patentability to Applicant
In In re Stepan Co., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 16246, decided August 25, 2017 the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals made it very clear that during patent prosecution, the burden of proving patent ability lies with the PTO examiner. 
The patent applicant was Stepan Co., who filed a patent application for formulas of an