Federal Circuit Finds Prior Sale of Product Made By Secret Process Continues to Bar Patent on Process Post-AIA
Federal appeals court held that under the America Invents Act, the sale of a product outside the grace period invalidates a patent on the product’s manufacturing process
In Celanese Int’l Corp. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a finding by the International Trade Commission (ITC) that certain claims of three Celanese patents were invalid because Celanese sold products made using the patented process more than one year before filing patent applications. Although it had long been settled law under the 1952 Patent Act that such sales would invalidate a corresponding process patent, Celanese argued that Congress had changed the law when it passed the America Invents Act (AIA) in 2011. The Federal Circuit disagreed.
Keep Up to Date in a Changing World
