Posts Tagged: "The Medicines Company"

The Federal Circuit, sitting en banc, unanimously reversed the prior panel, holding that MedCo was not barred from seeking its patents due to a commercial sale under § 102(b). The sale of manufacturing services by a contract manufacturer to an inventor to create an embodiment of a patented product for the inventor does not constitute a “commercial sale” of the invention. Further, “stockpiling” a product prior to the bar date is not a “commercialization” that would trigger § 102(b). Instead, the transaction must be one in which the product is “on sale” in the sense that it is commercially marketed.