Today, I present a gift to the many patent law professors that read this blog every morning (presumably). I give you a truly odd fact pattern that can be inserted neatly into your next exam, and which is guaranteed to annoy your students. All I ask in return is that you require those students to subscribe to the blog in perpetuity, on penalty of failure.
Deal? Deal.
The issue here was the on-sale bar. As a quick refresher, that's this bit of 102:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless—
(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; or
The patents in W.R. Grace & Co. v. Elysium Health, Inc., C.A No. 20-1098-GBW (D. Del. Aug 30, 2023) covered distinct crystal forms of a compound called "NCRI." Shortly before the critical date of July 24, 2013, the patentee had agreed to sell some NCRI to a customer. There was a PO and ...
